We could not get near the principal hotels.

These already were filled with high officers and ringed about with sentries; but half a mile away, on the plaza fronting the main railroad station, we finally secured accommodations--such as they were--at a small fourth- rate hotel.
It called itself by a gorgeous title--it was the House of the Thousand Columns, which was as true a saying as though it had been named the House of the One Column; for it had neither one column nor a thousand, but only a small, dingy beer bar below and some ten dismal living rooms above.

Established here, we set about getting in touch with the German higher-ups, since we were likely to be mistaken for Englishmen, which would be embarrassing certainly, and might even be painful.

At the hotel next door--for all the buildings flanking this square were hotels of a sort--we found a group of officers.
One of them, a tall, handsome, magnetic chap, with a big, deep laugh and a most beautiful command of our own tongue, turned out to be a captain on the general staff.

It seemed to him the greatest joke in the world that four American correspondents should come looking for war in a taxicab, and should find it too.