Beside the latest verboten and regulation of Belgian conduct on the city walls were posted German official news bulletins. The Belgians stopped to read; they paused to re-read. And these were the rare occasions when they smiled, and they liked to have a German sentry see that smile.
"Pour les enfants!" they whispered, as if talking to one another about a crèche. Little ones, be good! Here is a new fairy tale!
When a German wanted to buy something he got frigid politeness and attention—very frigid, telling politeness—from the clerk, which said:
"Beast! Invader! I do not ask you to buy, but as you ask, I sell; and as
I sell I hate! I hate! ! I hate! ! !"
An officer entering a shop and seeing a picture of King Albert on the wall, said:
"The orders are to take that down!"
"But don't you love your Kaiser?" asked the woman who kept the shop.
"Certainly!"
"And I love my King!" was the answer. "I like to look at his picture just as much as you like to look at your Kaiser's."
"I had not thought of it in that way!" said the officer.