At ten o’clock, the town lethargically retiring, all its legs moving slowly, like a spent insect, heavily boarding itself in, an _agent_ came gradually along the square. Kreisler’s visit to the police-station was not known to this one. He stopped opposite the sleeping Kreisler, surveying him with lawful indignation. “En voilà un joli gigolo!” He swayed energetically up to him. “Eh! le copain! Tu voudrais coucher à la belle étoile?” He shook him. “Oh, là! Tu ne peux pas dormir ici! _Houp!_ Dépêches-toi. Mets-toi debout!” Kreisler responded only by a tired movement as though to bury his skull in the bench. A more violent jerk rolled him on the ground. He woke up and protested in German, with a sort of dull asperity. He got on to his feet. At the sound of the familiar gutturals of the neighbouring Empire, the _agent_ became differently angry. Kreisler stood there, muttering partly in German and partly in French; he was very tired. He was telling bitterly of his attempt to get into the police-station, and of his inhospitable reception. The _agent_ understood several words of German—notably “ja” and “lager beer” and “essen.” The consequence was that he always thought he understood more than was really said in that language. However much might be actually intended on any given occasion by the words of that profound and teeming tongue, it could never equal in scope, intensity, and meaning what he heard. So he was convinced that Kreisler was threatening an invasion, and scoffed loudly in reply. He understood Kreisler to assert that the town in which they stood would soon belong to Germany, and that he would then sleep, not on a bench, but in the best bed their dirty little hole of a village could offer. He approached him threateningly. And eventually the functionary distinctly heard himself apostrophized as a “sneaking ‘flic’,” a “dirty peeler.” At that he laid his hand on Kreisler’s collar, and threw him in the direction of the police-station. He had miscalculated the distance. Kreisler, weak for want of food, fell at his feet; but, getting up, scuffled a short time. Then, it occurring to him that here was an unhoped for way of getting a dinner, and being lodged after all in the _bureau de police_, he suddenly became passive and complaisant. Arrived at the police-station—with several revolts against the brutal handling to which he was subjected—he was met at the door by the same inhospitable man. Exasperated beyond measure at this unwelcome guest turning up again, the man sent his comrade into the office to report, while he held Kreisler. He held him as a restive horse is held, and jerked him several times against the wall, as if he had been showing signs of resistance.