The reader may be glad of a momentary glimpse of the interior of the historic assembly afforded by those who were privileged to play a part in it before it was transformed into a secret conclave of five, four, or three.  Within the doors of the chambers whence fateful decrees were issued to the four corners of the earth the delegates were seated, mostly according to their native languages, within earshot of the special pleaders.  M. Clemenceau, at the head of the table, has before him a delegate charged with conducting the case, say, of Greece, Poland, Serbia, or Czechslovakia.  The delegate, standing in front of the stern but mobile Premier, and encircled by other more or less attentive plenipotentiaries, looks like a nervous schoolboy appearing before exacting examiners, struggling with difficult questions and eager to answer them satisfactorily.  Suppose the first language spoken is French.  As many of the plenipotentiaries do not understand it, they cannot be blamed for relaxing attention while it is being employed, and keeping up a desultory conversation among themselves in idiomatic English, which forms a running bass accompaniment to the voice, often finely modulated, of the orator.  Owing to this embarrassing language difficulty, as soon as a delegate pauses to take his breath, his arguments and appeals are done by M. Mantoux into English, and then it is the turn of the French plenipotentiaries to indulge in a quiet chat until some question is put in English, which has forthwith to be rendered into French, after which the French reply is translated into English, and so on unendingly, each group resuming its interrupted conversations alternately.

One delegate who passed several hours undergoing this ordeal said that he felt wholly out of sympathy with the atmosphere at the Conference Hall, adding:  “While arguing or appealing to my country’s arbiters I felt I was addressing only a minority of the distinguished judges, while the thoughts of the others were far away.  And when the interpreter was rendering, quickly, mechanically, and summarily, my ideas without any of the explosive passion that shot them from my heart, I felt discouraged.  But suddenly it dawned on me that no judgment would be uttered on the strength of anything that I had said or left unsaid.  I remembered that everything would be referred to a commission, and from that to a sub-commission, then back again to the distinguished plenipotentiaries,”

Another delegate remarked:  “Many years have elapsed since I passed my last examination, but it came back to me in all its vividness when I walked up to Premier Clemenceau and looked into his restless, flashing eyes.  I said to myself:  When last I was examined I was painfully conscious that my professors knew a lot more about the subject than I did, but now I am painfully aware that they know hardly anything at all and I am fervently desirous of teaching them.  The task is arduous.  It might, however, save