"Not one," I grinned.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said.
Locked in the compartment we nervously watched the door, half expecting that the police spy would come back for us. We could not have been delayed more than a few minutes, but it seemed hours, before, with German regard for comfort, the train glided out of the shed. It must have been trying on my companion's good humor, but the absurdity of stripping a courier of everything he carried, was irresistible. Perhaps it was our continued laughter that brought the knock on the door.
Pushing aside the curtains we saw outside—for it was one of the new German wagons with a passageway running the entire length of one side of the car—a tall, broad-shouldered, lean man with features and expression both typical and unmistakable.
"An Englishman!"
We saw him smile and shake his head. I hesitatingly let fall the curtain and looked at the courier.
"Let him in," he said. "He's got the brand of an English university boy all over him. We'll have a chat with him. You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind!" In my eagerness I banged back the compartment doors with a crash that brought down the conductor. I saw my companion hastily corrupt that official whose murmured "Bitteschon" implied an un-Teutonic disregard for the fact that he had done something verboten by admitting a second class passenger into a first class coupé; and the stranger entered.
We were gazing upon a strikingly handsome fair-haired man not yet thirty. His eyes twinkled when he said that he supposed we were Americans. His manner and intonation made me stare at him.
"And you?" we finally asked.