The German Landwehr, who were everywhere about, treated the inhabitants civilly enough, and the inhabitants showed no outward resentment against the Germans.  But beneath the lid a whole potful of potential trouble was brewing, if one might believe what the Germans told us.  We talked with a young lieutenant of infantry who in more peaceful times had been a staff cartoonist for a Berlin comic paper.  He received us beneath the portico of the Theatre Royale, built after the model of the Odeon in Paris.  Two waspish rapid-fire guns stood just within the shelter of the columns, with their black snouts pointing this way and that to command the sweep of the three-cornered Place du Theatre.  A company of soldiers was quartered in the theater itself.  At night, so the lieutenant said, those men who were off duty rummaged the costumes out of the dressing rooms, put them on, and gave mock plays, with music.  An officer’s horse occupied what I think must have been the box office.  It put its head out of a little window just over our heads and nickered when other horses passed.  Against the side of the building were posters advertising a French company to play the Gallicized version of an American farce—­“Baby Mine”—­by Margaret Mayo.  The borders of the posters were ornamented with prints of American flags done in the proper colors.

“Yes, Liege seems quiet enough,” said the lieutenant; “but we expect a revolt to break out at any time.  We expected it last night, and the guard in the streets was tripled and doubled; and these little dears”—­ patting the muzzle of one of the machine guns—­“were put here; and more like them were mounted on the porticoes of the Hotel de Ville and the Palais de Justice.  So nothing happened in the city proper, though in the outskirts three soldiers disappeared and are supposed to have been murdered, and a high officer”—­he did not give the name or the rank—­ “was waylaid and killed just beyond the environs.

“Now we fear that the uprising may come to-night.  For the last three days the residents, in great numbers, have been asking for permits to leave Liege and go into neutral territory in Holland, or to other parts of their own country.  To us this sudden exodus—­there seems to be no reason for it—­looks significant.

“These people are naturally turbulent.  Always they have been so.  Most of them are makers of parts for firearms—­gunmaking, you know, was the principal industry here—­and they are familiar with weapons; and many of the men are excellent shots.  This increases the danger.  At first they were content to ambush single soldiers who strayed into obscure quarters after dark.  Now it is forbidden for less than three soldiers in a party to go anywhere at night; and they think from this that we are afraid, and are growing more daring.

“By day they smile at us and bow, and are as polite as dancing masters; but at night the same men who smile at us will cheerfully cut the throat of any German who is foolish enough to venture abroad alone.