"I'll get out and see what's the matter," said the young lawyer, whom I shall refer to hereafter as Jean.
He came back in a minute looking serious.
"The train doesn't go any further!" he said. "There's no train for Ghent to-night."
We all got out, clutching our bags, and stood there on the platform in the reddened dusk that was fast passing into night.
A Pontonnier, who had been in the train with us, came up and said he was expecting an automobile to meet him here, and perhaps he could give some of us a lift as far as Ghent.
However, his automobile didn't turn up, and that little plan fell through.
Jean began to bite his moustache and walk up and down, smiling intermittently, a queer distracted-looking smile that showed his white teeth.
He always did that when he was thinking how to circumvent the authorities. He had a word here with an officer, and a word there with a gendarme. Then he came back to us:
"We shall all go and interview the stationmaster, and see what can be done!"
So we went to the stationmaster, and Jean produced his papers, and Julie produced hers, and the old professor from Liège produced his, and I produced my English passport.