the greatest genius for an emergency by some, by others a damned fool, by others every epithet between these extremes.  Men shook English banknotes in my face and demanded United States money and swore our Government and its agents ought all to be shot.  Women expected me to hand them steamship tickets home.  When some found out that they could not get tickets on the transports (which they assumed would sail the next day) they accused me of favouritism.  These absurd experiences will give you a hint of the panic.  But now it has worked out all right, thanks to the Savoy Committee and other helpers.

Meantime, of course, our telegrams and mail increased almost as much as our callers.  I have filled the place with stenographers, I have got the Savoy people to answer certain classes of letters, and we have caught up.  My own time and the time of two of the secretaries has been almost wholly taken with governmental problems; hundreds of questions have come in from every quarter that were never asked before.  But even with them we have now practically caught up—­it has been a wonderful week!

Then the Austrian Ambassador came to give up his Embassy—­to have me take over his business.  Every detail was arranged.  The next morning I called on him to assume charge and to say good-bye, when he told me that he was not yet going!  That was a stroke of genius by Sir Edward Grey, who informed him that Austria had not given England cause for war.  That may work out, or it may not.  Pray Heaven it may!  Poor Mensdorff, the Austrian Ambassador, does not know where he is.  He is practically shut up in his guarded Embassy, weeping and waiting the decree of fate.

Then came the declaration of war, most dramatically.  Tuesday night, five minutes after the ultimatum had expired, the Admiralty telegraphed to the fleet “Go.”  In a few minutes the answer came back “Off.”  Soldiers began to march through the city going to the railway stations.  An indescribable crowd so blocked the streets about the Admiralty, the War Office, and the Foreign Office, that at one o’clock in the morning I had to drive in my car by other streets to get home.

The next day the German Embassy was turned over to me.  I went to see the German Ambassador at three o’clock in the afternoon.  He came down in his pajamas, a crazy man.  I feared he might literally go mad.  He is of the anti-war party and he had done his best and utterly failed.  This interview was one of the most pathetic experiences of my life.  The poor man had not slept for several nights.  Then came the crowds of frightened Germans, afraid that they would be arrested.  They besieged the German Embassy and our Embassy.  I put one of our naval officers in the German Embassy, put the United States seal on the door to protect it, and we began business there, too.  Our naval officer has moved in—­sleeps there.  He has an assistant, a stenographer, a messenger: