the people
perhaps most at the Gare du Nord and the Place de la Gare, where the
Civic Guards, in their curious comic opera caps, are reinforced by
German gendarmes with rifles slung over their shoulders. Civilians are
not allowed to cross this square in front of the railway station. "Keep
to the sidewalk" is the brusque order to those who stray. Also the park
in front of the Royal Palace is closed to the public. Three bright red
gasoline tank wagons among the trees give it an incongruous touch, while
the walks and drives are used as an exercising ground for officers'
mounts. All the windows of the Royal Palace are decorated with the sign
of the Red Cross.

Brussels just now is humorously a victim of the double standard--not
moral, but financial. All kinds of money go here on the basis of 1 mark
equaling 1 franc 25 centimes, but shopkeepers still fix prices and
waiters bring bills in francs, and when payment is tendered in marks you
generally get change in both--a proceeding that involves elaborate
mathematical computations. At the next table to you in the restaurant of
the Palace Hotel, once a favorite stopping place for Anglo-American
travelers, but now virtually an exclusive German officers' club, with
the distinction of a double guard posted at the front door, sits a
short, fiercely mustached General of some sort--evidently a person of
great importance from the commotion his entry caused among all the other
officers in the room. In his buttonhole he wears the Iron Cross of the
second class, the Iron Cross of the first class pinned to his breast,
and underneath the rare "Pour le Merite Order, with Swords." His bill
amounts to about 7 francs, for he consumed the regular 4-franc table
d'hote, plus a full bottle of red Burgundy. He tenders a blue 100-mark
bill in payment and gets in return a baffling heap of change, including
1 and 2 franc Belgium paper notes, 5 and 10 mark German bills, Belgian
and German silver, and Belgian nickel coins with holes punched in the
centres. The General takes out his pencil and begins elaborate
calculations on the menu--then sends for the head waiter. It takes some
time and much talk to convince him that he is not being "short changed."
The double standard furnishes many of these humorous interludes.

Equally exasperating is the double time standard. The Germans set their
official clocks and watches by Berlin time, but have made no attempt to
force it on the natives, who continue loyal t