“Now, my children, make yourselves comfortable.  Drink what you please; but if any one of you gets drunk I shall take pleasure in seeing that he gets from seven to nine years in prison at hard labor.”  For which they thanked him gratefully in chorus.

I am not addicted to the diary-keeping habit, but during the next day, which was Friday, I made fragmentary records of things in a journal, from which I now quote verbatim: 

Seven-thirty a. m.—­about.  After making a brief toilet by sousing our several faces in a pail of water, we have just breakfasted—­sketchily—­ on wine and almonds.  It would seem that the German army feeds its prisoners, but makes no such provision for its guests.  On the whole I think I should prefer being a prisoner.

We have offered our landlady any amount within reason for a pot of coffee and some toasted bread; but she protests, calling on Heaven to witness the truth of her words, that there is nothing to eat in the house—­that the Germans have eaten up all her store of food, and that her old mother is already beginning to starve.  Yet certain appetizing smells, which come down the staircase from upstairs when the door is opened, lead me to believe she is deceiving us.  I do not blame her for treasuring what she has for her own flesh and blood; but I certainly could enjoy a couple of fried eggs.

Nine a. m.  Mittendorfer has been in, with vague remarks concerning our automobile.  Something warns me this young man is trifling with us.  He appears to be a practitioner of the Japanese school of diplomacy—­that is, he believes it is better to pile one gentle, transparent fiction on another until the pyramid of romance falls of its own weight, rather than to break the cruel news at a single blow.

Eleven-twenty.  One of the soldiers has brought us half a dozen bottles of good wine—­three bottles of red and three of white—­but the larder remains empty.  I do not know exactly what a larder is; but if it is as empty as I am at the present moment it must remind itself of a haunted house.

Eleven-forty.  A big van full of wounded Germans has arrived.  From the windows we can see it distinctly.  The more seriously hurt lie on the bed of the wagon, under the hood.  The man who drives has one leg in splints; and of the two who sit at the tail gate, holding rifles upright, one has a bandaged head, and the other has an arm in a sling.

Unless a German is so seriously crippled as to be entirely unfitted for service he manages to do something useful.  There are no loose ends and no waste to the German military system; I can see that.  The soldiers in the street cheer the wounded as they pass and the wounded answer by singing Die Wacht am Rhein feebly.

One poor chap raises his head and looks out.  He appears to be almost spent, but I see his lips move as he tries to sing.  You may not care for the German cause, but you are bound to admire the German spirit—­the German oneness of purpose.