In one instance, that of the Public Utilities Company, “La Financière,” sixty-five million francs’ worth of Allied securities (the major part of which were owned by British subjects) were saved by the general manager’s sagacity. At the beginning of 1915, two German officers, accompanied by twelve armed men, entered “La Financière” building in quest of these securities, which they had been informed, through some unknown source, were preserved there. The soldiers were posted in all corridors to prevent any attempt to escape the seizure by employés passing from one office room to another—a trick resorted to by others on more than one occasion of perquisition! The general manager, Mr. D. Heineman, an American, was then called, and bidden by the officers to submit his books and vaults for examination. This he did without the least hesitancy, having already—in anticipation of such a visit—altered his books and removed the securities to a vault, in the same building, sufficiently camouflaged to defy detection. When the officers failed to find any trace of the desired deposits they expressed surprise, and affirmed they had learned, on good authority, such securities were held by the house. Mr. Heineman replied the information was quite correct, but, as could be seen by his books, the securities had been removed from Belgium at a certain prior date. Meanwhile dishonesty increased in the lower ranks. Even those employed in the food organization filched sugar, rice, flour, etc., which they sold secretly at enormous prices. Certain personal experiences may illustrate the crafty ingenuity which prolonged sorrow and deprivation gradually developed among the common people—occasionally, too, among those of the better class, obliged for the first time in their lives to suffer the degrading pangs of want. Fruit, although there was plenty in the country, was shipped away in such quantities that the inhabitants could only indulge in it as an expensive luxury. One day, when I discovered a pushcart piled high with nice-looking apples, at a price far lower than that demanded at the market, I ordered five kilos to be taken home and paid for on delivery. The youth who, with his mother, tended the cart agreed to deliver them if his tram fare were paid in advance. As he had some distance to go, this was willingly done, and a written line given him for our butler, bidding him pay for the fruit at the stated price. I then went on to visit a friend, who, on learning of the apples, immediately wanted some and we set forth to revisit the cart. We had, however, gone only a few yards, when I was astonished to see the pushcart, attended by both the youth and his mother, standing before a house a few doors below that of my friend, where they were selling fruit. “What does this mean?” I asked the youth. “You have not taken the apples to my house!”