“I find one of your countrymen wizin ze army lines,” is the way Excellency von Mumm is reported as telling the story, “and I say to him, ’Herr Swing, it iss strongly forbidden zat a newspaper man come to ze front.  It is not permitted zat any one come here; you must go away.’

“Very goot, Excellency,” said Swing.

“Ze next day I am extr-r-remely sorry to encounter ze same chentleman, and I say to him, ’Go away at once.  If you are not gone in one hour you will be shot!’

“Very goot, Excellency,” answered Herr Swing.  “Auf wiedersehn.”

“Zat Very afternoon, to my sur-r-r-prise and gr-r-reat astonishment, I see him again.  He was still in ze army lines.  And I say to him, ’Now I have you!  This time you will be shot at sunrise!’

“And he look at me and say:—­

“‘Very goot, Excellency.  Zat make perfectly bully story for my paper.’

“And I look at him for a minute, and I do not know whether to shoot him or to laugh.

“And you know, I cannot help myself but to laugh.”

And finally there was the case of Cyril Brown, staff correspondent of the “New York Times” in Berlin, with whom I floundered through the maze of official red tape and military snares that entangled the reporter at the German capital.  Brown is an individual with a sense of humor and a Mark Twain penchant for ten-pfennig cigars.  He takes his work seriously, but, unlike most war correspondents, not himself.  After some interesting freight-car adventures of his own planning, he reached the Grosser Hauptquartier, a small city on the Meuse, where at that time the brain of the German fighting machine was located.  This most vulnerable spot of the entire German Empire was, paradoxically, in France.  The Kaiser, the King of Saxony, the Crown Prince of Germany, and Field Marshal von Moltke were here holding council of war.  It was therefore of utmost importance to conceal the locality.  Neutral correspondents were not allowed:  the German press, even if it knew, would not dare to breathe its whereabouts.  When Brown by strategy got inside the red-and-white striped poles which marked the entrance to the Over War Lord’s quarters, he was at once arrested and taken before Major Nikolai, head of the Kaiser’s bodyguard and chief of the field detectives.

It was late at night, and it was determined that Brown should go on the first military Postzug, which left at 7 A.M.  If he was not gone by that time there were terrible threats of what would happen to him.

It so happened that the day was the Crown Princess’s birthday.  Soldiers, grenadiers, and servants of the Kaiser’s household celebrated the fact.  Brown evaded his intoxicated sentinels and deliberately missed the train.  The following morning Major Nikolai discovered him behind the guardhouse, himself feigning intoxication.  Major Nikolai was about to throw Brown into jail “for the duration of the war” when the young man answered:—­