performing their routine duties under German direction.  The royal palace had been converted into a hospital for German wounded.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was occupied by the German General Staff.  The walls and hoardings were plastered with proclamations signed by the military governor warning the inhabitants of the penalties which they would incur should they molest the German troops.  The great square in front of the Gare du Nord, which was being used as a barracks, was guarded by a line of sentries, and no one but Germans in uniform were permitted to cross it.  One other person did cross it, however, German regulations and sentries notwithstanding.  Whedbee and I were lunching on Sunday noon in the front of the Palace Hotel, when a big limousine flying the American flag drew up on the other side of the square and Mr. Julius Van Hee, the American Vice-Consul at Ghent, jumped out.  He caught sight of us at the same moment that we saw him and started across the square toward us.  He had not gone a dozen paces before a sentry levelled his rifle and gruffly commanded him to halt.

“Go back!” shouted the sentry.  “To walk across the square forbidden is.”

“Go to the devil!” shouted back Van Hee.  “And stop pointing that gun at me, or I’ll come over and knock that spiked helmet of yours off.  I’m American, and I’ve more right here than you have.”

This latter argument being obviously unanswerable, the befuddled sentry saw nothing for it but to let him pass.

Van Hee had come to Brussels, he told us, for the purpose of obtaining some vaccine, as the supply in Ghent was running short, and the authorities were fearful of an epidemic.  He also brought with him a package of letters from the German officers, many of them of distinguished families, who had been captured by the Belgians and were imprisoned at Bruges.  When Van Hee had obtained his vaccine, he called on General von Ludewitz and requested a safe conduct back to Ghent.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Van Hee,” said the general, who had married an American and spoke English like a New Yorker, “but there’s nothing doing.  We can’t permit anyone to leave Brussels at present.  Perhaps in a few days—­”

“A few days won’t do, General,” Van Hee interrupted, “I must go back to-day, at once.”

“I regret to say that for the time being it is quite impossible,” said the general firmly.

“I have here,” said Van Hee, displaying the packet, “a large number of letters from the German officers who are imprisoned in Belgium.  If I don’t get the pass you don’t get these letters.”

“You hold a winning hand, Mr. Van Hee,” said the general, laughing, as he reached for pen and paper.