One surprise follows another so rapidly that one loses all sense of time: it seems an age since last Sunday.

I shall never forget Sir Edward Grey's telling me of the ultimatum--while he wept; nor the poor German Ambassador who has lost in his high game--almost a demented man; nor the King as he declaimed at me for half-an-hour and threw up his hands and said, "My God, Mr.Page, what else could we do ?" Nor the Austrian Ambassador's wringing his hands and weeping and crying out, "My dear Colleague, my dear Colleague." Along with all this tragedy come two reverend American peace delegates who got out of Germany by the skin of their teeth and complain that they lost all the clothes they had except what they had on.

"Don't complain," said I, "but thank God you saved your skins." Everybody has forgotten what war means--forgotten that folks get hurt.

But they are coming around to it now.

A United States Senator telegraphs me: "Send my wife and daughter home on the first ship." Ladies and gentlemen filled the steerage of that ship--not a bunk left; and his wife and daughter are found three days later sitting in a swell hotel waiting for me to bring them stateroom tickets on a silver tray! One of my young fellows in the Embassy rushes into my office saying that a man from Boston, with letters of introduction from Senators and Governors and Secretaries, et al., was demanding tickets of admission to a picture gallery, and a secretary to escort him there.
"What shall I do with him ?" "Put his proposal to a vote of the 200 Americans in the room and see them draw and quarter him." I have not yet heard what happened.