Mr. Cherry Kearton, Mr. Cleary, and Mr. Marshall, decided on the Queen's Hotel, somewhere near the quay. Their point was that it would be easier to get away from there. Mr. Robinson and Mr. Phillips refused to change from the Terminus. Mr. Fox, Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones, and myself chose the Wagner, as being in the most northerly direction, the farthest away from the forts, and the nearest to the Breda Gate, which led to Holland. In the moonlight, after dinner, taking my canary with me, I moved to my new quarters, accompanied to the doors by that little band of Englishmen, Cherry Kearton carrying my parrot. It was then ten o'clock. Strange things were to happen before we met again. Precisely at eleven the first shell fell. Whiz! It fled in a fury across the sky and burst somewhere in the direction of the Cathedral. As it exploded I shut my eyes, clenched my hands, and sank on the floor by my bedside, saying to myself, "God, I'm dead!" And I thought I was too. The enormity of that sound-sensation seemed to belong to a transition from this world to the next. It scarcely seemed possible to pass through that noise and come out alive. That was the first shell, and others followed quickly. The Hotel was alive immediately. Sleep was impossible. I crept down into the vestibule. It was all dark, save for one little light at the porter's door! I got a chair, drew it close to the light and sat down. I had a note-book and pencil, and to calm and control myself and not let my brain run riot I made notes of exactly what people said. I sat there all night long! Every now and then the doors would burst open and men and women would rush in. Once it was two slim, elegant ladies in black, with white fox stoles, who had run from their house because a shell had set fire to the house next door. They came into the pitch-black vestibule, moving about by the little point of light made by their tiny electric torch. They asked for a room. There was none. So they asked to sit in the dark, empty restaurant, and as I saw them disappear into that black room where many refugees were already gathered, sleeping on chairs and floors and tables I could not help being amazed at the strangeness of it all, the unlikeness of it all to life,--these two gently-nurtured sisters with their gentle manners, their white furs, their electric light, gliding noiselessly along the burning, beshelled streets, and asking for a room in the first hotel they came to without a word about terror, and with expressions on their faces that utterly belied the looks of fright and terror that the stage has almost convinced us are the real thing. Swing goes the door and in comes a man who asks the porter a question. "Is Monsieur L. here?" "Oui, Monsieur," replies the porter. "Where is he?" "He is in bed."