The night before, at the Albion, an inn which arrogates to itself the pompous name of Grand Hotel, I met two Belgian refugees who had succeeded in escaping from Belgium two days before, crossing the marshes and wireworks near Maesevck; and though I did not fancy this way was a very comfortable one, I couldn't see why I should not use it myself in case of necessity. At any rate, I bravely signed the paper, with the idea that something or somebody would get me out of trouble, and, as a matter of fact, I did not have trouble during the first part of my journey. I began to think that all that had been said about the cleverness of the German police was a little exaggerated. But at the end of my first day in Brussels, having retired to my room in the hotel, I was just going to bed, when I received a visit from two gentlemen who, I learned, were members of the German police. They were accompanied by four helmeted and fully-armed soldiers, two of whom remained in the corridor outside the door, while the other two stood like mummies, one at each side of the bed. First one of the two civilians, who seemed the higher-placed, informed me in excellent English that I was a very suspicious person, that the police were perfectly aware of what I was doing in Belgium, and that the Imperial Government would take against me any steps it thought suitable. I answered in French that I did not understand him, and that I had my passport in perfect order. "It is easy to have a passport, but the Imperial Government is not the dupe of such childish tricks." He then ordered his companions to search the room. As for myself, the search was made extremely easy by the simplified costume I happened to be wearing. I have had lately a few experiences of this sort, but the one in Brussels easily beat all the former ones. The police inspector in Berlin and the Turkish Custom House officers are as blind as bats and as superficial as amateurs compared with this man, who I honestly thought was Argus himself. He examined my luggage, my linen, my clothes, assured himself that nothing was concealed underneath the linings, looked for a double bottom in my bag, for receptacles in my watch-case, and produced from his roomy pockets a miniature hammer with which he made sure that the rather high heels of my boots were not hollow. I suppose I could not help smiling while he was taking all this useless trouble, and the other man remarked that I need not make my position still worse by behaving insultingly to the representative of the Imperial police.