And then the eagle began to scream. I have often wished when traveling in Europe that so many American tourists would not so constantly keep America and Americanism in the foreground of everything they thought and said and did--but on that night in the Cherche Midi I was as blatant and noisy and proud an American as ever there was. We waved the Stars and Stripes and shouted the Declaration of Independence at the now bewildered officer until he begged us to desist. Earlier in our conversation we had discussed the mighty effects of journalism and how it visited its pleasures and its displeasures. Now we quoted the Constitution of the United States and produced our passports. We demanded an immediate audience with the American Ambassador. Our dinner was waiting, and the officer declared finally that if we would only eat it he would see what he could do for us, to the extent of telephoning to the Military Governor. We could hear his part of the telephone conversation as we attacked our food. We never learned with whom he was talking, but he made it strong. He never had such persons as ourselves inside his prison and he would be devoutly thankful to be rid of us. And besides--this was whispered but we caught the drift of it--they were Americans, these prisoners, and perhaps it might be just as well to send some word about them to the American Embassy. There was more that we could not hear, but finally he informed us that an officer was coming from headquarters to talk with us; that we were to wait where we were. I do not know what influence, aside from the telephone conversation, intervened in our behalf that night. But I am sure that conversation had little to do with it beyond perhaps securing an immediate rather than deferred action. Perhaps it was an accident, perhaps a change of opinion at the Military Governor's headquarters as to the sentence that had been passed upon us. At any rate, at the moment we were paying for our dinner and demanding a receipt dated from inside the prison walls (every one of us kept an eye open to newspaper copy in demanding the receipt in such fashion) the door was flung open and a high Government official whom most of us knew personally, entered the room. His first act was to fling the money from the hands of the hotel servant back upon the table--snatch the receipts, and tear them in pieces. "Gentlemen, the dinners are on me," was his greeting. A few hours later the military attaché of the American Embassy who had been roused from his bed, explained that Mr. Herrick would undertake the personal responsibility for our parole. The gates of the Cherche Midi opened. The heavy arm of military authority had lightened; but the free road to the battle front was still closed. CHAPTER XI UNDER THE CROIX ROUGE