That was check number one to the governor, but another was to follow. The good folk of Brussels, the Germans noted, were showing altogether too much spirit. They were saying among themselves that the French would soon put the Germans in their places. So the governor placarded the town with a notice informing the inhabitants that France had left the Belgians to their fate; she had all she could do to look after herself, and would trouble no further about her little ally. This specious story might have had the designed effect but for M. Max. Paying no heed to the possible consequences to himself, he immediately had another notice, bearing his own signature, pasted underneath the governor's poster. It was short and very much to the point. It stated that the German statement was an out-and-out lie to which no attention should be paid. What the governor said when he heard of this swift counter-stroke may be left to the imagination. What he did was weak enough. He simply issued another notice saying that in future no proclamations were to be posted up without his sanction. For a few days M. Max was left in peace; then he had another little tussle with the enemy. Because a clerk at the town hall refused to accept a requisition order which was not properly filled up, a blustering German officer forced his way into the Burgomaster's room with a cigar in his mouth. M. Max looked at him coldly. "Sir," he said, "you are the first person to walk into my rooms without being properly announced." The Prussian began to bully and threaten, but without heeding him M. Max sent one of his staff to fetch the intruder's superior officer, General von Arnim. The general came, heard of his subordinate's rudeness, and sentenced him on the spot to eleven days' arrest. Then he turned to M. Max. "Now, sir," he said, "the conversation can continue." "Pardon, general," replied the Burgomaster, "it can now commence." III--HUMOR OF THE WITTY BRUXELLOIS Throughout their dealings with the people of Brussels the Germans have found themselves time and again outwitted. Scarce a prohibition has been framed which has not been countered on the instant by some brilliant evasion that has rendered it not merely null and void, but ridiculous as well. "_Verboten_," that fetish of the docile German mind, succeeds only in stimulating the inventiveness of the witty Bruxellois.