"What! You mean they have your papers?"
"All of them," he smiled. "Likewise a trunk full of letters and a valise. Oh, well, they'll send them on. They took my address. Gad, they stripped me through!"
I began laughing. The courier could see no mirth in the situation.
"You," I gasped, "you, who by all rights should have paraded through, from you they take everything while they let me pass."
"Do you mean to say," he exclaimed, "that they didn't take your letters?"
"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!"