I ceased abruptly. Here I was, a bare ten minutes' walk from my home--and I might as well have been a thousand miles. The clang of those doors had shut off all the world. How long did they expect to keep us there? A night? A week? A month? Perhaps until the war was over? What could we do about it? Nothing. Those doors shut off all hope. We could get no word to any one if our captors did not desire it. We would remain there exactly as long as they wished. No matter what we thought about it--no matter how innocent we were of military misdemeanor. We were prisoners of war in the Cherche Midi--and I understood the Dreyfus case better. Just before we filed into the examination room whence came the shaft of light, the sage of our party, who had suggested back in the courtyard that we be good prisoners until the right moment arrived, tapped me on the shoulder and spoke in my ear: "Now's the time," he said. "We must kick now or never. I will begin the rumpus and you follow--and kick hard." They lined us up in the tiny office where a lieutenant duly inscribed our names and nefarious profession in the great register. He slammed the book shut, and began directions to an orderly about conducting us to our cells--when the sage spoke. "What about dinner?" he began. "Too late," said the officer. "It's midnight." "Not too late to be hungry," was the reply. "We have had nothing to eat since noon. Do you want it printed that prisoners are starved in the Cherche Midi?" The officer reflected. He then consulted with several orderlies and finally stated that there was no available food in the prison, but that he would permit us, at our expense, to have dinner served from a hotel near-by. We agreed to this and the orderlies departed. This arranged two things which we desired: food--for we were really famished--and time to plan our campaign for liberty before being separated into cells. While the orderlies were gone we made an argumentative onslaught on the Lieutenant in his little cubby-hole office, separated by a low partition from the big gloomy hall where we were told to await our dinner. We told him in detail who we were, how we happened to be there, all the time insisting on the injustice of our treatment. He replied that although he could not discuss the merits of our case, it might interest us to know that his orders were to keep us for eight days in solitary confinement, not allowing us to even talk with each other, after that dinner which the orderlies were now spreading on a big table. Eight days!--and we had already been there a year--or so it seemed. Eight days! Why it was an eternity. And we would not stand it. The fight in all of us was finally aroused. They could drag us to cells and keep us; yes, but dragging would be necessary. We assured him of that.