ool questions about the United
States put by Englishmen. With a military attache, a naval attache,
three secretaries, a private secretary, two automobiles, Alice's
private secretary, a veterinarian, an immigration agent, consuls
everywhere, a despatch agent, lawyers, doctors, messengers--they
keep us all busy. A woman turned up dying the other day. I sent
for a big doctor. She got well. As if that wasn't enough, both the
woman and the doctor had to come and thank me (fifteen minutes
each). Then each wrote a letter! Then there are people who are
going to have a Fair here; others who have a Fair coming on at San
Francisco; others at San Diego; secretaries and returning and
outgoing diplomats come and go (lunch for 'em all); niggers come up
from Liberia; Rhodes Scholars from Oxford; Presidential candidates
to succeed Huerta; people who present books; women who wish to go
to court; Jews who are excited about Rumania; passports, passports
to sign; peace committees about the hundred years of peace; opera
singers going to the United States; artists who have painted some
American's portrait--don't you see? I haven't said a word about
reporters and editors: the city's full of them.

A Happy New Year.

Affectionately,
WAT.

_To Ralph W. Page_[30]
London, December 23, 1913.

DEAR RALPH:

. . . The game is pretty much as it has been. I can't think of any
new kinds of things to write you. The old kinds simply multiply and
repeat themselves. But we are beginning now really to become
acquainted, and some life friendships will grow out of our
experience. And there's no doubt about its being instructive. I get
glimpses of the way in which great governments deal with one
another, in ways that our isolated, and, therefore, safe government
seldom has any experience of. For instance, one of the Lords of the
Admiralty told me the other night that he never gets out of
telephone reach of the office--not even half an hour. "The
Admiralty," said he, "never sleeps." He has a telephone by his bed
which he can hear at any moment in the night. I don't believe that
they really expect the German fleet to attack them any day or
night. But they would not be at all surprised if it did so
to-night. They talk all the time of the danger and of the
proba