er of credit. They simply put up the
shutters and crawled under the bed. So in Europe, where there
actually was war, the women tourists, with nothing but a worthless
letter of credit between them and sleeping in a park, had every
reason to be panic-stricken. But to explain the hysteria of the hundred
thousand other Americans is difficult--so difficult that while they live
they will still be explaining. The worst that could have happened to
them was temporary discomfort offset by adventures. Of those they
experienced they have not yet ceased boasting.

On August 5th, one day after England declared war, the American
Government announced that it would send the Tennessee with a
cargo of gold. In Rome and in Paris Thomas Nelson Page and Myron
T. Herrick were assisting every American who applied to them, and
committees of Americans to care for their fellow countrymen had
been organized. All that was asked of the stranded Americans was to
keep cool and, like true sports, suffer inconvenience. Around them
were the French and English, facing the greatest tragedy of centuries,
and meeting it calmly and with noble self-sacrifice. The men were
marching to meet death, and in the streets, shops, and fields the
women were taking up the burden the men had dropped. And in the
Rue Scribe and in Cockspur Street thousands of Americans were
struggling in panic-stricken groups, bewailing the loss of a hat-box,
and protesting at having to return home second-class. Their suffering
was something terrible. In London, in the Ritz and Carlton
restaurants, American refugees, loaded down with fat pearls and
seated at tables loaded with fat food, besought your pity. The imperial
suite, which on the fast German liner was always reserved for them,
"except when Prince Henry was using it," was no longer available,
and they were subjected to the indignity of returning home on a nine-
day boat and in the captain's cabin. It made their blue blood boil; and
the thought that their emigrant ancestors had come over in the
steerage did not help a bit.

The experiences of Judge Richard William Irwin, of the Superior
Court of Massachusetts, and his party, as related in the Paris Herald,
were heartrending. On leaving Switzerland for France they were
forced to carry their own luggage, all the porters apparently having
selfishly marched off to die for their country, and the train was not
lighted, nor did any one collect their tickets. "We have them yet!" says
Judg