"Passport! Out of the question, my dear sir! Let once one of my passports go wrong and I am ruined. Oh, no! no passports where deserters are concerned! I don't like the business ... it's not safe! At the beginning of the war ... ah! that was different! Oi, oi, but they ran from the Yser and from Ypres! Oi, oi, and from Verdun! But now the police are more watchful. No! It is not worth it! It would cost you too much money, besides." I thought the miserable cur was trying to raise the price on me, but I was mistaken. He was frightened: the business was genuinely distasteful to him. I tried, as a final attempt to persuade him, an old trick: I showed him my money. He wavered at once, and, after many objections, protesting to the last, he left the room. He returned with a handful of filthy papers. "I oughtn't to do it; I know I shall rue it; but you have overpersuaded me and I liked Herr Eichenholz, a noble gentleman and free with his money--see here, the papers of a waiter, Julius Zimmermann, called up with the Landwehr but discharged medically unfit, military pay-book and _permis de séjour_ for fifteen days. These papers are only a guarantee in case you come across the police: no questions will be asked where I shall send you." "But a fifteen days' permit!" I said. "What am I to do at the end of that time?" "Leave it to me," Kore said craftily. "I will get it renewed for you. It will be all right!" "But in the meantime...." I objected. "I place you as waiter with a friend of mine who is kind to poor fellows like yourself. Your brother was with him." "But I want to be free to move around." "Impossible," the Jew answered firmly. "You must get into your part and live quietly in seclusion until the enquiries after you have abated. Then we may see as to what is next to be done. There you are, a fine set of papers and a safe, comfortable life far away from the trenches--all snug and secure--cheap (in spite of the danger to me), because you are a lad of spirit and I liked your brother ... ten thousand marks!" I breathed again. Once we had reached the haggling stage, I knew the papers would be mine all right. With Semlin's money and my own I found I had about £550, but I had no intention of paying out £500 straight away. So I beat the fellow down unmercifully and finally secured the lot for 3600 marks--£180. But, even after I had paid the fellow his money, I was not done with him. He had his eye on his perquisites. "Your clothes will never do," he said; "such richness of apparel, such fine stuff--we must give you others." He rang the bell. The old man-servant appeared. "A waiter's suit--for the Linien-Strasse!" he said. Then he led me into a bedroom where a worn suit of German shoddy was spread out on a sofa. He made me change into it, and then handed me a threadbare green overcoat and a greasy green felt hat.