volunteering to aid Mr. Herrick at the embassy or Mrs.
Herrick at the American Ambulance Hospital and tending wounded
Turcos. But between soothing terrified Americans and washing
niggers, I'm sorry now I didn't choose the hospital."

In Paris there were two embassies running overtime; that means from
early morning until after midnight, and each with a staff enlarged to
six times the usual number. At the residence of Mr. Herrick, in the
Rue Francois Ier, there was an impromptu staff composed chiefly of
young American bankers, lawyers, and business men. They were
men who inherited, or who earned, incomes of from twenty thousand
to fifty thousand a year, and all day, and every day, without pay, and
certainly without thanks, they assisted their bewildered, penniless,
and homesick fellow countrymen. Below them in the cellar was stored
part of the two million five hundred thousand dollars voted by
Congress to assist the stranded Americans. It was guarded by quick-
firing guns, loaned by the French War Office, and by six petty officers
from the Tennessee. With one of them I had been a shipmate when
the Utah sailed from Vera Cruz. I congratulated him on being in Paris.

"They say Paris is some city," he assented, "but all I've seen of it is
this courtyard. Don't tell anybody, but, on the level, I'd rather be back
in Vera Cruz!"

The work of distributing the money was carried on in the chancelleries
of the embassy in the Rue de Chaillot. It was entirely in the hands of
American army and navy officers, twenty of whom came over on the
warship with Assistant Secretary of War Breckinridge. Major Spencer
Cosby, the military attache of the embassy, was treasurer of the fund,
and every application for aid that had not already been investigated
by the civilian committee appointed by the ambassador was decided
upon by the officers. Mr. Herrick found them invaluable. He was
earnest in their praise. They all wanted to see the fighting; but in other
ways they served their country.

As a kind of "king's messenger" they were sent to our other
embassies, to the French Government at Bordeaux, and in command
of expeditions to round up and convoy back to Paris stranded
Americans in Germany and Switzerland. Their training, their habit of
command and of thinking for others, their military titles helped them to
success. By the French they were given a free road, and they were
not only of great assistance to others, but what they saw of the war