At this a roar of laughter went up from the table that could be heard for a considerable distance.

About this same time Page’s personal secretary, Mr. Harold Fowler, came to ask the Ambassador’s advice about enlisting in the British Army.  To advise a young man to take a step that might very likely result in his death was a heavy responsibility, and the Ambassador refused to accept it.  It was a matter that the Secretary could settle only with his own conscience.  Mr. Fowler decided his problem by joining the British Army; he had a distinguished career in its artillery and aviation service as he had subsequently in the American Army.  Mr. Fowler at once discovered that his decision had been highly pleasing to his superior.

“I couldn’t advise you to do this, Harold,” Page said, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder, “but now that you’ve settled it yourself I’ll say this—­if I were a young man like you and in your circumstances, I should enlist myself.”

Yet greatly as Page abhorred the Prussians and greatly as his sympathies from the first day of the war were enlisted on the side of the Allies, there was no diplomat in the American service who was more “neutral” in the technical sense.  “Neutral!” Page once exclaimed.  “There’s nothing in the world so neutral as this embassy.  Neutrality takes up all our time.”  When he made this remark he was, as he himself used to say, “the German Ambassador to Great Britain.”  And he was performing the duties of this post with the most conscientious fidelity.  These duties were onerous and disagreeable ones and were made still more so by the unreasonableness of the German Government.  Though the American Embassy was caring for the more than 70,000 Germans who were then living in England and was performing numerous other duties, the Imperial Government never realized that Page and the Embassy staff were doing it a service.  With characteristic German tactlessness the German Foreign Office attempted to be as dictatorial to Page as though he had been one of its own junior secretaries.  The business of the German Embassy in London was conducted with great ability; the office work was kept in the most shipshape condition; yet the methods were American methods and the Germans seemed aggrieved because the routine of the Imperial bureaucracy was not observed.  With unparalleled insolence they objected to the American system of accounting—­not that it was unsound or did not give an accurate picture of affairs—­but simply that it was not German.  Page quietly but energetically informed the German Government that the American diplomatic service was not a part of the German organization, that its bookkeeping system was American, not German, that he was doing this work not as an obligation but as a favour, and that, so long as he continued to do it, he would perform the duty in his own way.  At this the Imperial Government subsided.  Despite such annoyances Page refused to let his own feelings interfere with the work.  The mere fact that he despised the Germans made him over-scrupulous in taking all precautions that they obtained exact justice.  But this was all that the German cause in Great Britain did receive.  His administration of the German Embassy was faultless in its technique, but it did not err on the side of over-enthusiasm.