It was a regular taxicab,
with a meter on it, and a little red metal flag which might be turned up
or turned down, depending on whether the cab was engaged or at liberty;
and he was a regular chauffeur.
We, the passengers, wore straw hats and light suits, and carried no
baggage. No one would ever have taken us for war correspondents out
looking for war. So we went; and, just when we were least expecting it,
we found that war. Perhaps it would be more exact to say it found us.
We were four days getting back to Brussels, still wearing our straw
hats, but without any taxicab. The fate of that taxicab is going to be
one of the unsolved mysteries of the German invasion of Belgium.
From the hour when the steamer St. Paul left New York, carrying probably
the most mixed assortment of passengers that traveled on a single ship
since Noah sailed the Ark, we on board expected hourly to sight
something that would make us spectators of actual hostilities. The
papers that morning were full of rumors of an engagement between English
ships and German ships somewhere off the New England coast.
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