ve
committed suicide. Yesterday one poor American woman yielded to the
excitement and cut her throat. I find it hard to get about much.
People stop me on the street, follow me to luncheon, grab me as I
come out of any committee meeting--to know my opinion of this or
that--how can they get home? Will such-and-such a boat fly the
American flag? Why did I take the German Embassy? I have to fight
my way about and rush to an automobile. I have had to buy me a
second one to keep up the racket. Buy?--no--only bargain for it,
for I have not any money. But everybody is considerate, and that
makes no matter for the moment. This little cottage in an
out-of-the-way place, twenty-five miles from London, where I am
trying to write and sleep, has been found by people to-day, who
come in automobiles to know how they may reach their sick
kinspeople in Germany. I have not had a bath for three days: as
soon as I got in the tub, the telephone rang an "urgent" call!

[Illustration: No. 6 Grosvenor Square, the American Embassy under
Mr. Page]

[Illustration: Irwin Laughlin, Secretary of the American Embassy at
Longon, 1912-1917, Counsellor 1916-1919].

Upon my word, if one could forget the awful tragedy, all this
experience would be worth a lifetime of commonplace. One surprise
follows another so rapidly that one loses all sense of time: it
seems an age since last Sunday. I shall never forget Sir Edward
Grey's telling me of the ultimatum--while he wept; nor the poor
German Ambassador who has lost in his high game--almost a demented
man; nor the King as he declaimed at me for half-an-hour and threw
up his hands and said, "My God, Mr. Page, what else could we do?"
Nor the Austrian Ambassador's wringing his hands and weeping and
crying out, "My dear Colleague, my dear Colleague."

Along with all this tragedy come two reverend American peace
delegates who got out of Germany by the skin of their teeth and
complain that they lost all the clothes they had except what they
had on. "Don't complain," said I, "but thank God you saved your
skins." Everybody has forgotten what war means--forgotten that
folks get hurt. But they are coming around to it now. A United
States Senator telegraphs me: "Send my wife and daughter home on
the first ship." Ladies and gentlemen fil