Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-04-16

| ly come to return my call.
''Je ne suis pas encore en- uni
! forme." ca am not yet in uniform,
l said offering my excuses for my at
tire. and the general laughed, slap
ping his yellow puttees with a little
| silver-headed riding crop. He eX-
pressed his regret that the kilograms
had not been sent but he had arrang-
ed all with the director of telegraphs
and l could send them to the bureau.
When, the long day having slowly
declined toward 1890 a. m, Villalo-
bar came and l could give him the
good news about our dispatches, we
drove to the bureau of biographies
but the noncommisioned officer was
patient, stolid and unmoved-and the
dispatches we're not sent. 1t was use
less, and we gave up and drove away
to the Hotel de Vile. We found M.
Max in his bureau, explained the sit
uation, and he sent for General Won
Jarotsky. who appeared, bowling,
smiling, clicking his spurs; it was
very strange, he said; let them bring
in the director des biographies i'm
mediately before him and he would
issue instruction that should be
final. One could not help feeling sor-
ry for the director des telegraphes,
in view of what was about to happen
to him.
Then the general and the burgo-
master discussed the conditions of
the city, growing hourly more des-
perate. M. Max explained there was
no food, no forage for the horses,
and finally, reserving the worst for
the last, that there was no money in
the hanks-so that he could not pay
the levy. NJ. Max went on to tell him
that the treasure in the Banque Ma
tionale, upon which the whole hnan-
cial system of Belgium is based, had
all been transferred to Antwerp.
They did wrong. 1t was not cor
rect, that" said the general, grow,
ing red.
M. Max shrugged his sholders and
mon generate reflected. Finally he
said that he would accept checks,
notes or some written evidence of in
debtedness, and then he went away
and left us. And when he had gone,
M. Max explained that he had taken
advantage of our presence to men
ton to the general the difficult
point about the 100000 francs;
he was glad of our company and
countenance as he broke the news to
the peppery little man.
The bOurgmestre, expecting some
one, asked us to wait in the Sale du
College, where the echevins CALDER
mem in the room with the great oak
table and the high-backed chairs and
the tapestries of the time of Charles
", their various coats-of-arms all open
to Villalobar-asked us with many
apologies, for it had been turned into
a chamber for him; and it was given a
somewhat more modern and contem
porary note by the little iron cot
where the brave burgomaster slept
those troubled nights-and a valise
and toilet case with a little mirror on
table and a change Of clothes hung
over a chair.
Finally the directeur des tele-
graphes came, a miserable little man
with the dismal air of one in Sunday
blacks, a typical rond de CUR, who
could accumulate difficulties and find
excuses, like functionaries the world
over, whether at Nashapur or Baby
lon, whether at Brussels or Toledo,
who are much more fertile in reasons
why a given thing can not be done
than in expedients to get it accom-
pTished. When the bourgmestre came
in he wrote out an order, designed to
overcome the official reluctance of the
directeur, went out, and returned pres
emily, f1ourishing the order triumph
antly, for it had the generals sigma
ture.
AS Count Bottara-Costa had said
the morning the Germans entered
Brussels, our position there was deli
cate. Diplomatic representatives &C
credited to the king Of the Belg1ans,
our place was near the court and the
government, which had retired to Ant
werp. I realized this fact, OF course,
and had discussed and settled the
point of etiquette with Monsieur Da-
vignon, the Belgian minister for for
eign affairs.
The situation was unprecedented.
Never before, save when the Germans