of the most anxious
weeks of my life. I was nearer the pavement than I have ever been
before or since. There was a charming German family at the inn at
which I stopped, gentle, courteous people, father, mother, and a
little blue-eyed daughter. When the little girl found I was from
America I can now see her innocent wide-open eyes as she asked me if I
had ever seen an Indian. I could tell her some good stories of Indians
for in boyhood I had lived near a reservation of Senecas, at that time
to a large extent, in their primitive state. When I ventured one
day to tell the polite father of my present embarrassment I at once
noticed a sudden cooling off. The little girl no longer came to talk
with me and the family held aloof. Plainly I had become an object of
suspicion, I was now penniless, my story might be true or perhaps I
was paving the way for asking a loan. How could he tell that I was
not a dead-beat? I was really in a strait. The Americans had very
generally left the city in consequence of the turmoil. I could hear
of no one excepting our Consul who was still at his post. Calling upon
him and telling my story, I found him cool to the point of rudeness. I
had excellent letters from Bancroft and others which I showed him and
which ought to have secured me a respectful hearing. I asked only for
sympathy and counsel but I received neither, and could not have been
treated worse if I had been a proved swindler. The Consul afterwards
wrote a book in which he told of experiences with inconvenient
countrymen who had recourse to him in their straits, and possibly I
myself may have figured as one of his examples. My feeling is that
he was a man not fit for his place, for in the circumstances he might
certainly have shown some kindness. My few pieces of silver jingled
drearily in my pocket; perhaps my best course would be to enlist in
the German army. I thought the cause a just one for the atmosphere
had made me a good German, and as a soldier I might at least earn my
bread. To my joy, however, in one of my daily visits to the banking
house the courteous young partner told me that a telegram had come in
some roundabout way from Paris and they were prepared to pay me the
full amount on my letter of credit. I clutched the money, two pretty
cylinders of gold coin done up in white paper, which I sewed securely
into the waist-band of my trousers and felt an instant strengthening
of nerve and self-respect.

I departed then for Swit