I acknowledged the self-evident fact.

“How does one get in, since you keep your door locked?” he added.

“Well,” I replied, with a smile, “as a rule, one knocks.”

To that his only reply was:  “Your name?”

I gave it to him.

He looked on his paper, repeated it—­mispronouncing it, of course, and evidently sure that I did not know how to pronounce it myself.

“Foreigner,” he stated.

I could not deny the charge.  I merely volunteered “Americaine.”

Then the inquiry continued like this.  “Live here?”

“Evidently.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Since June, 1914.”

That seemed to strike him as a very suspicious date, and he stared at me hard for a moment before he went on:  “What for?”

“Principally because I leased the house.”

“Why do you remain here in war-time?”

“Because I have nowhere else to go,” and I tried not to smile.

“Why don’t you go home?”

“This is my home.”

“Haven’t you any home in America?”

I resisted telling him that it was none of his business, and did my best to look pathetic—­it was that, or laugh—­as I answered:  “Alas!  I have not.”

This seemed to strike both of them as unbelievable, and they only stared at me as if trying to put me out of countenance.

In the meantime, some of the people of Huiry, interested always in gendarmes, were standing at the top of the hill watching the scene, so I said:  “Suppose you come inside and I will answer your questions there,” and I opened the door of the salon, and went in.

They hesitated a moment, but decided to follow me.  They stood, very stiffly, just inside the door, looking about with curiosity.  I sat down at my desk, and made a motion to them to be seated.  I did not know whether or not it was correct to ask gendarmes to sit down, but I ventured it.  Evidently it was not correct, for they paid no attention to my gesture.

When they were done looking about, they asked me for my papers.

I produced my American passport.  They looked at the huge steel-engraved document with great seriousness.  I am sure they had never seen one before.  It impressed them—­as well it might, in comparison with the civil papers of the French government.

They satisfied themselves that the picture affixed was really I—­that the name agreed with that on their books.  Of course, they could not read a word of it, but they looked wise.  Then they asked me for my French papers.  I produced my permis de sejour—­permitting me to stay in France provided I did not change my residence, and to which was affixed the same photograph as that on my passport; my declaration of my civil situation, duly stamped; and my “immatriculation,” a leaf from the register on which all foreigners are written down, just as we would be if admitted to a hospital or an insane asylum.