Your Papers arc not in Order. . . .
I have often wondered what it would feel like to hear for oneself that phrase which plays such a part in traditional spy fiction: 'Your papers are not in order.' Returned from a holiday on an Italian island, I can say that I have heard it, and that it was by no means a romantic experi- ence, but more simply entmerdant. My wife and I, she travelling on an Austrian passport, had set out for Italy and had just embarked in our* sleeper at the Gore de Lyon when I noticed that my passport was fourteen days out of date. I did not feel much disturbed about this, reflecting that, having passed unnoticed through two pass- port officers, I could manage a third without difficulty. What was my horror and surprise then when, at Modane, at four o'clocksin the morning, there came a rap at the door and my wife's pass- port was thrust through the chink of the door with the comment that it had no Italian visa. These, it turned out, had been introduced as a consequence of the South Tyrol dispute—a fact which had passed inhabitants of London by, but not the frontier 'police. '11 Jaw descendre du tram,' said the officer, `Ali displace.' Cursing and swearing, we dressed, left the train and stood for- lornly on the platform watching its lights dis- appear into a tunnel. It was only too like that scene in a Hitchcok film.
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