So began an anxious day, not only for the girl from Texas but for all London as well.

Her father was bursting with new diplomatic secrets recently extracted from his bootblack adviser.

Later, in Washington, he was destined to be a marked man because of his grasp of the situation abroad.

No one suspected the bootblack, the power behind the throne; but the gentleman from Texas was destined to think of that able diplomat many times, and to wish that he still had him at his feet to advise him.
"War by midnight, sure!" he proclaimed on the morning of this fateful Tuesday.

"I tell you, Marian, we're lucky to have our tickets on the Saronia.