The churls allowed me to pass readily enough, but rescinded their action a moment later. Once beyond the barrier, I had paused to photograph the pandemonium that reigned about it. A lieutenant bellowed and a group of soldiers and officials quickly swarmed about me. Did I not know that photography was forbidden at the front? I protested that the station scenes of Kreuz could scarcely be called military information. What of that? I knew that it was within the zone of the armies, did I not? Rules were rules; it was not the privilege of every Tom, Dick, and Harry to interpret them to his own liking. A lean, hawk-faced civilian, who seemed to be in command, ordered me to open my kodak and confiscated the film it contained. If I set great store by the pictures on it, he would have it developed by the military authorities and let me have those that proved harmless, upon my return. I thanked him for his leniency and strolled toward the compartment I had chosen. Before I had reached it he called me back. “Let me see your papers again,” he demanded, in a far gruffer tone. He glanced casually at them, thrust them into a pocket of his coat, and snapped angrily: “Get your baggage off the train! I am not going to let you through.” It was plain that he was acting from personal rather than official motives. Probably he considered my failure to raise my hat and to smile the sycophant smile with which my fellow-passengers addressed him as an affront to his high Prussian caste. Fortunately he was not alone in command. A more even-tempered official without his dyspeptic leanness beckoned him aside and whispered in his ear. Perhaps he called his attention to the importance of my credentials from Wilhelmstrasse. At any rate, he surrendered my papers after some argument, with an angry shrug of the shoulders, and his less hungry-looking companion brought them back to me. “It has all been arranged,” he smirked. “You may take the train.”