to the desk, pulled out his revolver from its leather pouch, and laid it with a lethal gesture on the maire’s desk.  The maire examined it curiously.  “Ah, yes, M. le Capitaine, thank you; I will examine it in a moment, but I have seen better ones—­our new service pattern, for example.  Ja!  Ich verstehe ganz gut,” he continued, answering the officer’s reckless French in perfect German.  “Consider yourself under arrest,” declaimed the officer, with increasing violence.  “We are in occupation of your town; you will provide us within the next twenty-four hours with ten thousand kilos of bread, thirty thousand kilos of hay, forty thousand kilos of oats, five thousand bottles of wine, one hundred boxes of cigars.” ("Mon Dieu! it is an inventory,” said the maire to himself.) “If these are not forthcoming by twelve noon to-morrow you will be shot,” added the officer in a sudden inspiration of his own.

The maire was facing the officer, who towered above him.  “Ah, yes, Monsieur le Capitaine, you will not take a seat?  No?  And your requisition—­you have your commandant’s written order and signature, no doubt?” The officer blustered.  “No, no, Monsieur le Capitaine, I am the head of the civil government in this town; I take no orders except from the head of the military authority.  You have doubtless forgotten Hague Regulation, Article 52; your Government signed it, you will recollect.”  The officer hesitated.  The maire looked out on the place; it was full of armed men, but he did not flinch.  “You see, monsieur,” he went on suavely, “there are such things as receipts, and they have to be authenticated.”  The officer turned his back on him, took out his field note-book, scribbled something on a page, and, having torn it out, handed it to one of his men with a curt instruction.

The maire resumed his dictation to the hypnotised clerk, while the officer sat astride a chair and executed an impatient pas seul with his heels upon the parquet floor.  Once or twice he spat demonstratively, but the maire took no notice.  In a few minutes the soldier returned with a written order, which the officer threw upon the desk without a word.

The maire scrutinised it carefully.  “Ten thousand kilos of bread!  Monsieur, we provide five thousand a day for the refugees, and this will tax us to the uttermost.  The bakers of the town are nearly all sous les drapeaux.  Very well, monsieur,” he added in reply to an impatient exclamation from the officer, “we shall do our best.  But many a poor soul in this town will go hungry to-night.  And the receipts?” “The requisitioning officer will go with you and give receipts,” retorted the officer, who had apparently forgotten that he had placed the maire under arrest.

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