hectic time. Hoover arrived
on Sunday evening, accompanied by Shaler and by three representatives of
the Rockefeller Foundation. We have had a steady rush of meetings,
conferences, etc., and Hoover and Shaler pulled out early this morning.
There is not much relief in sight, however, for to-morrow morning at the
crack of dawn, I expect to start off on a tour of Belgium, to show the
Rockefeller people what conditions really are. We shall be gone for
several days and shall cover pretty well the whole country.

Yesterday morning I got Jack off to Mons to bring back the British
nurses. Everything in the way of passports and arrangements with the
military authorities had been made, and he went away in high spirits for
a little jaunt by himself. This morning at half-past three o'clock he
rang the doorbell and came bristling in, the maddest man I have seen in
a long time. He had suffered everything that could be thought of in the
way of insult and indignity, and to make it worse, had been obliged to
stand by and watch some brutes insult the girls he was sent down to
protect. When he arrived at Mons he got the nurses together and took
them to the headquarters, where he explained that he had been sent down
by the Minister with the consent of the German authorities, to bring the
nurses to Brussels. This was stated in writing on the passport given him
by the German authorities here. Instead of the polite reception he had
expected, the German officer, acting for the Commandant, turned on him
and told him that the nurses were to be arrested, and could not go to
Brussels. Then, by way of afterthought, he decided to arrest Jack and
had him placed under guard on a long bench in the headquarters, where he
was kept for three hours. Luckily, an old gentleman of the town who knew
the nurses, came in on some errand, and before they could be shut up,
they contrived to tell him what the situation was and ask him to get
word to the Legation. Right away after this the three women were taken
out and put in the fourth-class cells of the military prison, that is,
in the same rooms with common criminals. Jack was left in the guard
room. The old gentleman, who had come in, rushed off to the Burgomaster
and got him stirred up about the case, although he was loath to do
anything, as he _knew_ that a representative of the American Legation
could not be arrested. Finally he did come around to headquarters, and
after a long row with the Adjutant, they got