“Ah!” and his eyebrows were elevated so much as to mingle almost with his hair.

“But why have you so much photographic apparatus?”

“It is necessary for the work I am taking up.”

“Ah!” once again the eyebrows vanished scalp-wards.

“Have you a camera upon you?”

“No!”

“Ah!” another dance of the eyebrows.

He rapped out a short command and before I was aware of the circumstance two pairs of hands were running rapidly over my body and in and out of my pockets with the dexterity of men who had served a long apprenticeship under an Artful Dodger.  It proved a blank search.  I gave a sigh of relief, because had the searchers run their hands over the lower part of my person they would have come across two cameras, and my treasured little companion, wrapped in his leather jacket, alert and ready for silent service, but concealed in a most unexpected corner.  I could scarcely repress a smile when I recognised that I was immune from further search.  Evidently the Pooh-bah was somewhat disconcerted at the negative results achieved, because, after firing one or two other desultory questions at me, he handed back my passport and other papers, and told me I could continue my journey.

Desiring to disarm suspicion completely I did not hurry away but lingered around the little court and even indulged in a short idle conversation with my interlocutor, who, however, somewhat resented my familiarity.  I lounged back to the train, hugely delighted with myself, more particularly as, quite unbeknown to the fussy individual with the beard, I had snapped a picture of his informal court with my little camera.

The frontier formalities at last concluded, the train resumed its crawl, ambling leisurely along for some two hours, stopping now and then to draw into a siding.  On such occasions troop train after troop train crowded with soldiers thundered by us en route to Berlin.  The sight of a troop train roused our passengers to frenzy.  They cheered madly, throwing their hats into the air.  The huzzas were returned by the soldiers hanging out of the windows with all the exuberant enthusiasm of school boys returning home at the end of the term.

But we were not destined to make a through run to the capital.  Suddenly the train was pulled up by a military guard upon the line.  We were turned out pell-mell and our baggage was thrown on to the embankment.  This proceeding caused considerable uneasiness.  What had happened?  Where were we going? and other questions of a similar character were hurled at the soldiers.  But they merely shook their heads in a non-committal manner.  They either did not or would not know.  Our feelings were not improved when the empty carriages were backed down the line, the engine changed ends, and we saw the train steam off in another direction.  The hold-up of the train had taken place at a depressing spot.  We were completely stranded, without provisions or any other necessities, and at an isolated spot where it was impossible to obtain any supplies.  The passengers pestered the guard for information, and at last the officers, to still any further enquiry, declared that they were going to do something, to carry us “somewhere.”