Before I had done so, thanks to the continued curiosity of the soldiers, the _Oberleutnant_ sent word that he wished to see me. I kicked myself inwardly for not having gone while the going was good, and entered his private office. He motioned me to a chair, sat down himself, and fell to asking me questions. They were fully as disconnected and trivial as many an interrogation of prisoners I had heard from the lips of American officers. My respect for the stern discipline and trained staff of the German army was rapidly oozing away. Like his soldiers, the C. O. of Bentheim seemed chiefly interested in the plenitude and price of food and tobacco in France and Belgium. Then he inquired what people were saying in Paris of the peace conditions and how soon they expected them to be ready. “_Sie kriegen keinen Frieden_—they’ll get no peace!” he cried suddenly, with considerable heat, when I had mumbled some sort of answer. Then he abruptly changed the subject, without indicating just what form the lack of peace would take, and returned again to food. “What will Wilson do about his Fourteen Points?” he interrupted, somewhat later. “All he can,” I answered evasively, having had no private tip on the President’s plans. “Yes, but what _can_ he,” demanded the German, “against that other pair? We shall all be swamped with Bolshevism—America along with the rest of us! “Luckily for you the train comes in the morning,” he concluded, rising to indicate that the interview was at an end. “You would not have found us here this afternoon. May first is a national holiday this year, for the first time. We are a republic now, with socialistic leanings,” he ended, half savagely, half sneeringly.