For any material result, both the searches held at Holzminden were an absolute farce. Of one of them we had full warning. An enormous quantity of books were temporarily confiscated for examination and removed to the parcel room. One or two maps which had been carelessly left uncovered were duly netted; but anything of real importance, such as civilian hats, clothes, compasses, and the overwhelming majority of the maps, were securely hidden before the search ever began, and all that happened was that every officer in the camp was invited to undress and then to dress again. These ordeals were great fun. When it got to the final stages and the victim was in his undergarments, he was invited to give his parole that he had nothing actually concealed about his person. With some of us delicacy conquered. Others were less fastidious and requested the German to continue his ungrateful task to the bitter end. Long before the attic floor—in both houses the richest in contraband stores—was reached, the searching-parties had tired of the beauty of the human form and proceedings had become entirely formal. One officer prominent in this story was taken by surprise at one of these searches with a whole escape kit under his bed. But he had also at the foot of his bed a large black wooden box which had a double bottom. Luckily, when the sleuths entered his room, the first thing that caught their eye was the big black box. They turned everything out of it and tapped the bottom. After a frenzied argument, lasting quite half an hour, between a detective from Berlin who said there was a double bottom, and the double bottom expert, who, being called over to examine it, said there was not, the former triumphantly put his foot through the false bottom. It hid one or two books (prayer books, etc.) and some private papers of no particular interest. These articles were carried off in triumph, and every Hun present shook the detective’s hand as if he had scored a goal for Blackburn Rovers. They were so pleased that they _forgot to look under the bed_.