"I don't recognise these," says the tram guard, examining them solemnly. "They're not what our soldiers carry. I can't let you go free on these." "But we have no money!" splutter the Germans. "Then I must ask you to get out," says the guard gravely. And the two Germans, looking very foolish, actually get out of the tram, whereupon the passengers all burst into uncontrollable laughter, which gives them a vast amount of satisfaction, while the two Germans, very red in the face, march away down the street. As for the street urchins, they flourish under the German occupation, adopting exactly the same attitude towards their conquerors as that manifested by their elders and M. Max. Dressed up in paper uniforms, with a carrot for the point of their imitation German helmet they march right under the noses of the Germans, headed by an old dog. Round the old dog's neck is an inscription: "_The war is taking place for the aggrandisement of Belgium!_" The truth is--the beautiful truth--that the spirit of M. Max hangs over Brussels, steals through it, pervades it. It is his ego that possesses the town. It is Max who is really in occupation there. It is Max who is the true conqueror. It is Max who holds Brussels, and will hold it through all time to come. For all that the Germans are going about the streets, and for all that Max is detained in his "honorable" fortress, the man's spirit is so indomitable, so ardent, that he makes himself felt through his prison walls, and the population of Brussels is able to say, with magnificent sangfroid, and a confidence that is absolutely real:-- "They may keep M. Max in a fortress! But even les alboches will never dare to hurt a hair of his head!" CHAPTER XXII UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION In my empty hotel the profoundest melancholy reigns. The inherent sadness of the occupied city seems to have full sway here. The palm court, with its high glassed roof, is swept with ghostly echoes, especially when the day wanes towards dusk, the great deserted dining-salon, with its polished tables and its rows of chairs is like a mausoleum for dead revellers, the writing-rooms with their desks always so pitifully tidy, the smoking-rooms, the drawing-rooms, the floor upon floor of empty, guestless bedrooms, with the beds rolled back and the blinds down; they ache with their ghastly silences and seem to languish away towards decay. The only servant is Antoine, the bent little old faithful white-haired porter, who has passed his lifetime in the service of the house. Madame la Patronne, in heavy mourning, with her two small boys clinging to either arm, sometimes moves across the palm court to her own little sitting-room. And sometimes some Belgian woman friend, always in black, drops in, and she and la Patronne and the old porter all talk together, dully, guardedly, relating to each other the gossip of Brussels, and wondering always how things are going with "les petits Belges" outside in the world beyond.