om ex-President
Roosevelt. It was explained that this was the second letter for him I
had had from Colonel Roosevelt, but that when I was a prisoner with the
Germans, I had judged it wise to swallow the first one, and that I had
requested Colonel Roosevelt to write the second one on thin paper. The
President smiled and passed the letter critically between his thumb and
forefinger.

"This one," he said, "is quite digestible."

I carried away the impression of a kind and distinguished gentleman,
who, in the midst of the greatest crisis in history, could find time to
dictate a message of thanks to those he knew were neutrals only in name.

CHAPTER II

THE MUD TRENCHES OF ARTOIS

AMIENS, October, 1915.

In England it is "business as usual"; in France it is "war as usual."
The English tradesman can assure his customers that with such an
"old-established" firm as his not even war can interfere; but France,
with war actually on her soil, has gone further and has accepted war as
part of her daily life. She has not merely swallowed, but digested it.
It is like the line in Pinero's play, where one woman says she cannot go
to the opera because of her neuralgia. Her friend replies: "You can have
neuralgia in my box as well as anywhere else." In that spirit France has
accepted the war. The neuralgia may hurt, but she does not take to her
bed and groan. Instead, she smiles cheerfully and goes about her
duties--even sits in her box at the opera.

As we approached the front this was even more evident than in Paris,
where signs of war are all but invisible. Outside of Amiens we met a
regiment of Scots with the pipes playing and the cold rain splashing
their bare legs. To watch them we leaned from the car window. That
we should be interested seemed to surprise them; no one else was
interested. A year ago when they passed it was "Roses, roses, all the
way"--or at least cigarettes, chocolate, and red wine. Now, in spite of
the skirling bagpipes, no one turned his head; to the French they had
become a part of the landscape.

A year ago the roads at every two hundred yards were barricaded. It was
a continual hurdle-race. Now, except at distances of four or five miles,
the barricades have disappeared. One side of the road is reserved for
troops, the other for vehicles. The vehicles we met--for the most part
two-wheeled hooded carts--no longer contained peasants flying from
dismant