to make an announcement. But what do they
do? Give my telegram to the press! It appears here almost verbatim
in this morning's _Mail_.--I have to make an humiliating
explanation to the Foreign Office. This is the third time I've had
to make such an humiliating explanation to Sir Edward. It's getting
a little monotonous. He's getting tired, and so am I. They now deny
at the Foreign Office that anything has been decided about Carden,
and this meddling by us (as they look at it) will surely cause a
delay and may even cause a change of purpose.

That's the practical result of their leaking at Washington. On a
previous occasion they leaked the same way. When I telegraphed a
remonstrance, they telegraphed back to me that the leak had been
_here_! That was the end of it--except that I had to explain to Sir
Edward the best I could. And about a lesser matter, I did the same
thing a third time, in a conversation. Three times this sort of
thing has happened.--On the other hand, the King's Master of
Ceremonies called on me on the President's Birthday and requested
for His Majesty that I send His Majesty's congratulations. Just ten
days passed before a telegraphic answer came! The very hour it
came, I was myself making up an answer for the President that I was
going to send, to save our face.

Now, I'm trying with all my might to do this job. I spend all my
time, all my ingenuity, all my money at it. I have organized my
staff as a sort of Cabinet. We meet every day. We go over
everything conceivable that we may do or try to do. We do good team
work. I am not sure but I doubt whether these secretaries have
before been taken into just such a relation to their chief. They
are enthusiastic and ambitious and industrious and--_safe_. There's
no possibility of any leak. We arrange our dinners with reference
to the possibility of getting information and of carrying points.
Mrs. Page gives and accepts invitations with the same end in view.
We're on the job to the very limit of our abilities.

And I've got the Foreign Office in such a relation that they are
frank and friendly. (I can't keep 'em so, if this sort of thing
goes on.)

Now the State Department seems (as it touches us) to be utterly
chaotic--silent when it ought to respond, loquacious when it ought