In everything, both then and thereafter, he was most polite.
"I do not understand how you came here, you gentlemen," he said at length.

"We have no correspondents with our army." "You have now," said one of us, seeking to brighten the growing embarrassment of the situation with a small jape.
Perhaps he did not understand.

Perhaps it was against the regulations for a colonel, in full caparison of sword and shoulder straps, to laugh at a joke from a dusty, wayworn, shabby stranger in a dented straw hat and a wrinkled Yankee-made coat.

At any rate this colonel did not laugh.
"You did quite right to report yourselves here and explain your purposes," he continued gravely; "but it is impossible that you may proceed.

To-morrow morning we shall give you escort and transportation back to Brussels.