actress," he added, with a knowing smile. "She
knows how to get a room when others cannot."

We arrived in Budapest about 11 p.m. The "D" telegram, alas, was
languishing far behind. It was delivered next day about noon. Knowing
the expensive folly of taking a cab and trying to find a hotel I made a
midnight exploration of the capital of Hungary on foot, all sleeping,
all apparently dead and without a spark of night life. There were no
trains, no flocking crowds, but only occasional pedestrians and the
accidental clatter of a horse-cab now and then. And the Danube rolled
through the stillness silently. I fell in with a late-going working
man coming off a day shift. He piloted me to the "Ritz," home of
Allied Commissions and delegates of all kinds. That there should be a
room there was unlikely enough, but it was possible to persuade the
clerk to telephone to various obscure establishments on the "other side
of the river." It is always obscure on the other side of the river.

At last a hotel was found and located, and when the cabman had brought
my things from the station and one asked timidly: "How much?" one
received a characteristic reply.

"A thousand crowns," said the unblushing cabby--rather more than the
cost of a ticket for the whole journey from Belgrade to Budapest.

I saw next day that I must report to the police within twenty-four
hours of arrival, and also within twenty-four hours of departure. Such
is modern travel in Europe, and I felt rather amused when the question
was put to me, "Are you travelling for pleasure or on business?"

Serbia and Hungary are not on good terms. The Hungarians will not
forgive the loss to Serbia of territory over which they claim to have
ruled for a thousand years. Hungary will not forgive the Czechs or the
Roumanians either. They have been mightily despoiled by the nations.
Roumania has doubled her original territory at old Hungary's expense.
Czechoslovakia holds Pressburg, the ancient capital and coronation-city
of the Hungarian kings, and calls it Bratislavl. "They might as well
have called it New York," says a Magyar contemptuously. There is
nothing soft or relenting about the Magyars. They are quite
implacable, and they are a fighting people. There is no good will. On
the contrary, there is definite ill-will on the part of Hungary towards
her neighbours. Austria is soft towards the new nations which have
arisen on the ruins of her empire, but Hungary