enizelos about giving up Kavalla, and the cablegram Prince Danilo, of
"Merry Widow" fame, sent to his cousin of Italy. By following these
events, the situation is as easy to grasp as an eel that has swallowed
the hook and cannot digest it.

For instance, Mr. Poneropolous, the well-known contractor who sells
shoes to the army, informs me the Greeks as one man want war. They are
even prepared to fight for it. On the other hand, Axon Skiadas, the
popular barber of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, who has just been called to
the colors, assures me no patriot would again plunge this country into
conflict.

The diplomats also disagree, especially as to which of them is
responsible for the failure of Greece to join the Allies. The one who is
to blame for that never is the one who is talking to you. The one who is
talking is always the one who, had they followed his advice, could have
saved the "situation." They did not, and now it is involved, not to say
addled. The military attache of Great Britain volunteered to set the
situation before me in a few words. After explaining for two hours, he
asked me to promise not to repeat what he had said. I promised. Another
diplomat, who was projected into the service by William Jennings Bryan,
said if he told all he knew about the situation "the world would burst."
Those are his exact words. It would have been an event of undoubted news
value, and as a news-gatherer I should have coaxed his secret from him,
but it seemed as though the world is in trouble enough as it is, and if
it must burst I want it to burst when I am nearer home. So I switched
him off to the St. Louis convention, where he was probably more useful
than he will ever be in the Balkans.

While every one is guessing, the writer ventures to make a guess. It is
that Greece will remain neutral, or will join the Allies. Without
starving to death she cannot join the Germans. Greece is non-supporting.
What she eats comes in the shape of wheat from outside her borders, from
the grain-fields of Russia, Egypt, Bulgaria, France, and America. When
Denys Cochin, the French minister to Athens, had his interview with the
King, the latter became angry and said, "We can get along without
France's money," and Cochin said: "That is true, but you cannot get
along without France's wheat."

The Allies are not going to bombard Greek ports or shell the Acropolis.
They will not even blockade the ports. But their fleets--French,
Italian, English--wi