night. We now
have an orderly organization at four places: The Embassy, the
Consul-General's Office, the Savoy, and the American Society in
London, and everything is going well. Those two first days, there
was, of course, great confusion. Crazy men and weeping women were
imploring and cursing and demanding--God knows it was bedlam
turned loose. I have been called a man of the greatest genius for
an emergency by some, by others a damned fool, by others every
epithet between these extremes. Men shook English banknotes in my
face and demanded United States money and swore our Government and
its agents ought all to be shot. Women expected me to hand them
steamship tickets home. When some found out that they could not get
tickets on the transports (which they assumed would sail the next
day) they accused me of favouritism. These absurd experiences will
give you a hint of the panic. But now it has worked out all right,
thanks to the Savoy Committee and other helpers.

Meantime, of course, our telegrams and mail increased almost as
much as our callers. I have filled the place with stenographers, I
have got the Savoy people to answer certain classes of letters, and
we have caught up. My own time and the time of two of the
secretaries has been almost wholly taken with governmental
problems; hundreds of questions have come in from every quarter
that were never asked before. But even with them we have now
practically caught up--it has been a wonderful week!

Then the Austrian Ambassador came to give up his Embassy--to have
me take over his business. Every detail was arranged. The next
morning I called on him to assume charge and to say good-bye, when
he told me that he was not yet going! That was a stroke of genius
by Sir Edward Grey, who informed him that Austria had not given
England cause for war. That _may_ work out, or it may not. Pray
Heaven it may! Poor Mensdorff, the Austrian Ambassador, does not
know where he is. He is practically shut up in his guarded Embassy,
weeping and waiting the decree of fate.

Then came the declaration of war, most dramatically. Tuesday
night, five minutes after the ultimatum had expired, the Admiralty
telegraphed to the fleet "Go." In a few minutes the answer came
back "Off." Soldiers began to march through the city