They gave me back my luggage, papers, and money, but in German notes instead of gold; and though I protested, as gold fetches in Belgium about twenty-seven francs per pound, they simply answered that no gold was allowed in Belgium, and I had to give in on this point. But I got any amount of pleasure, quite worth the money they made me lose, by telling them a few simple truths, which generally one cannot afford to tell to a German unless one happens to meet him somewhere out of reach of the police. * * * After my visit to the ruined towns of East Belgium I naturally expected to see in Brussels the depressed appearance and the lifeless look of the other parts of the country. I was therefore extremely surprised to find the town with all its shops and its theatres open, and with its everyday life in full swing. The German authorities try to keep things as lively as possible in Brussels, and, up to a certain point, they succeed in doing so. Officers and men have received very special orders; they can do anything they like in the small provincial towns, but they must be fairly polite to the population in Brussels. As long as the capital has not been pillaged, burned, or shelled, the German Government thinks to have in its hands proof that no useless damage was done, and that the tragic happenings in the other towns were indirectly the fault of the "treacherous Belgians." Another reason for this special treatment of Brussels is that though the Ambassadors of foreign States have left for Le Havre, a few members of the legations of neutral countries still remain in the town who would be compromising and official witnesses of any useless acts of cruelty. And this is why Brussels is the only Belgian town with a garrison of crack troops and well-to-do officers, the only town in which theatres are open (by special command of the Government of Brussels), and the only town in which restaurants and cafés keep open till eleven o'clock--some even till midnight, German time. The question of time is really very curious. One of the first acts of the invaders was to impose, or rather try to do so, the Berlin hour on Belgium. Everybody stuck to the old Belgian time, which is an hour earlier than the German. Then the Germans forced the sacristans of the different churches to put the steeple clocks back an hour, but, as by a miracle, the old clocks, many of which had been going for centuries, developed trouble of some kind or another, and suddenly stopped. Now it is only the Royal Palace and station clocks that mark German time; all the others have stopped or are undergoing endless repairs. The time at which his watch is set is now a sign by which you can detect the sympathies of a person. When you sit in a tramcar or in a café, and somebody wishes to ask you a question, he glances first at your wrist, and, from the time of your watch, knows whether you are a friend or a foe.