stranger who had waxed eloquent in defense of Germany. He was watching the crowd with a look at once mocking and sardonic, as a spider might watch a fly struggling vainly to escape from the web. He glanced at Stewart, then turned away without any sign of recognition.

"Where do you go, sir?" the porter asked, when they were safely through the gates.

"To the Kölner Hof."

"It is but a step," said the porter, and he unhooked his belt, passed it through the handles of the suit-cases, hooked it together again and lifted it to his shoulder. "This way, sir, if you please."

The Kölner Hof proved to be a modest inn just around the corner, where Stewart was received most cordially by the plump, high-colored landlady. Lunch would be ready in a few minutes; meanwhile, if the gentleman would follow the waiter, he would be shown to a room where he could remove the traces of his journey. But first would the gentleman fill in the blank required by the police?

So Stewart filled in the blank, which demanded his name, his nationality, his age, his business, his home address, the place from which he had come to Aix-la-Chapelle and the place to which he would go on leaving it, handed it back to the smiling landlady, and followed an ugly, hang-dog waiter up the stair.

The room into which he was shown was a very pleasant one, scrupulously clean, and as he made his toilet, Stewart reflected how much more of comfort and how much warmer welcome was often to be had at the small inns than at the big ones, and mentally thanked the officer of police who had recommended this one. He found he had further reason for gratitude when he sat down to lunch, served on a little table set in one corner of a shady court—the best lunch he had eaten for a long time, as he told the landlady when she came out presently, knitting in hand, and sat down near him. She could speak a little English, it appeared, and a little French, and these, with Stewart's little German, afforded a medium of communication limping, it is true, but sufficient.

She received the compliments of her guest with the dignity of one who knew them to be deserved.

"I do what I can to please my patrons," she said; "and indeed I have had no cause to complain, for the season has been very good. But this war—it will ruin us innkeepers—there will be no more travelers. Already, I hear, Spa, Ostend, Carlsbad, Baden—such places as those—are deserted just when the 

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