“My name is Curtin,” I began, introducing myself, although I felt somewhat uneasy.

“Thomas!” was all he said.

“Good Heavens!” I thought.  “Is this man looking for me?  Am I in for serious trouble now?”

Instead, however, of Thomas being an interrogation as to my first name, it was his simple introduction of himself—­a strange coincidence.

Although he was addressing his remarks to me, he exclaimed in a tone which could be heard all over the room that he was Chief of Police during the Russian occupation of Wehlau for three weeks, and took great pride in asserting that he was the man who could tell me all that I wished to know.  He was highly elated because the Russians had employed him, given him a whistle and invested him with authority to summon aid if he detected any wrong-doing.  They had furthermore paid him for his services.  Although he now roundly tongue-lashed them in general terms, there was no definite personal accusation that he could make against them.

He told me of a sergeant who went into a house, ordered a meal and then demanded money, threatening the woman who had served him.  A lieutenant entered at this moment, learned the particulars of the altercation, and struck the sergeant, whom he reproved for disobeying commands for good conduct which had come from Headquarters.  “Just think of such lack of respect among officers,” Thomas concluded.  “One officer striking another for something done against a person in an enemy country.  That is bad for discipline.  Such a thing would never happen in the German Army.”

The moral of the story as I saw it was quite different from what he had intended it to be.

A few days later I was again in the crowded beer hall when Herr Thomas entered.  He liked to be in the limelight, and had a most extraordinary manner of apparently addressing his conversation to some selected individual, but carried it on in a tone which could be heard throughout the entire room.  The Russian whistle which he still wore, and of which he was very proud, threatened to become a millstone about his neck, for returning refugees were accusing him of inefficiency during his reign, since they asserted that the Russians had stolen their goods from under his very nose.

After he had hurled the usual invectives against the invaders for my benefit, two splendid looking officers, captain and lieutenant, both perfect gentlemen, said that they hoped that I would not become so saturated with this talk that I would write unfairly about the Russians.  They added that they had been impressed by the Russian officers in that region and the control which they had exercised over their men.

Early next morning I met the big man with the black beard who was either on my trail or had encountered me again by chance.  When I said that I was going to Allenburg, of the destruction of which I had heard so much, he practically insisted that I go with him in his carriage.  A mysterious stranger in brown was with him, who also assisted in the sight-seeing.