"Yes, all right, you may go, but we only want you to tell us what you know of this man." "Oh--oh ... I don't understand you ... let me go ... my little boy ... we have nothing to eat ... we are innocent ... I do not know the gentleman ... oh ... oh!" I took the liberty to explain to the officer that the man did not understand him, and stated that he did not know me. "Then, why did you want to stay at the man's house?--what brought you here?" Thus my examination opened. I told him everything from beginning to end, also that the commanding officer had given me permission to stay at that house, that I had shown my papers to the soldiers at the goods station opposite the house, and that I did not understand why I should be put to all this inconvenience. He explained to me that one of those soldiers accused me of ... spying and arson. He had thought to recognise in me a person who had asked him that afternoon whether he was ... a Belgian or a German soldier, and whom he had also seen escaping from a factory which was in full blaze a moment later. Highly indignant, I claimed of course that that soldier should also be called; but I was told that I had better assume a more modest tone. I then asked to be taken to the commanding officer, whom I had seen that afternoon; but he was away on inspection or something, and would not return before the next morning. After this the officer examined my papers carefully one by one, and had to admit that they were in perfect order. Still, he had no authority to take a decision before I had been seen by the commanding officer. The old man was allowed to go home, escorted by the same soldiers. At the very moment that he was about to leave, I happened to notice on the platform a gigantic heap of loaves, brought in by train for the soldiers. "Do you know," I asked the officer, "that this old man and his grandchild are starving? He put me up because I gave him a couple of pieces of bread-and-butter for the child." He looked at me somewhat crossly, but inquired all the same whether my information was correct, and then gave the old man two loaves, which dried his tears immediately, and for which he thanked the donor in a quivering voice. Two soldiers now took everything I had in my pockets, even my watch and my purse. This brought also to light a German map of Belgium, with a stamp "For military use only." I was told in a gruff voice that this was a highly suspicious thing, and that they could not understand how it got into my possession. I replied quite coolly that I had bought the thing in Aix-la-Chapelle for one mark, where it could be had in many shops, and that the words "For the military only" merely revealed the shrewd German commercial instinct, which knows that people always like to possess things which are not meant for them. I believe that this made him angry; at least he ordered me to take off my shoes also, and their inside was carefully examined.