“Well, well, well! Do they speak German? They speak German, I hope.” To us: “Do you speak German?
“Well, well, I must search you, my men. I must search you, I must; I must search you.”
“Hold on,” said one of our escort, “the lieutenant says they are not to be searched. The lieutenant saw to that. And you’ve got to do the best you can for them, and you are to put them in a cell together. Orders from the lieutenant!”
“Well, I must search them,” repeated the warder helplessly. “I must search them, you know; prison rules, you know. I must search them for concealed weapons!”
“Nothing of the sort. They were searched, and we’ve got orders to see that you don’t bother them again.”
“Have you any knives, pistols, revolvers, or other weapons on you?” Stubbornly the warder had turned to us. The habit of years is not so easily discarded.
“Oh, let’s give him our pocket-knives, Wace, and get it over,” I said, half laughing, half annoyed.
“Come into this room; come in here; come into this room. Now I’ll enter the articles in this book; yes, I’ll enter them in this book.” He began to write, speaking the words aloud: “No. 000000, one ivory-handled pocketknife. No. 000001, one horn-handled pocketknife.… Now, I’ll give them back to you when you leave, you see; I’ll give them back to you when you leave; yes, I’ll give them back to you.”
“Yes, but we want to get back ourselves,” said one of the soldiers. “Hurry up and show us their cell. We are to have a look at it, the lieutenant said.”
“All right, all right, all right! I’ve got a single cell will do for the two of them; a single cell for the two; yes, for the two.”