ill you sit down?" said another girl to the king. "There are plenty
of chairs."

That girl had done her job in France--a job of which many a man might
have been proud--and on her left breast she wore a military medal for
valor. The king touched the medal, smiled at her, and said he was glad
there were plenty of chairs, for he knew places where there were not.

But General Pershing and his cake still bothered the little Illinois
girl, who went back at him again and asked him to sit down and enjoy his
cake. The king indicated to the general to be seated.

No one but General Pershing would have known what to do between the rule
to stand when a king stands and the rule to obey the order of the king.
He gracefully placed his plate on the side of a table, half seated
himself on it, which was a compromise, and went on enjoying himself.
The king sat down.

If any one had told that girl the sacredness of the convention she had
ignored, she would have suffered as keenly as I had suffered in my
youth. It was such a simple thing to learn; yet who in the middle of a
war would think of stopping to run a class in etiquette? The point is
that any girl capable of crossing half the world to do a big job and a
hard one in a foreign land should have been given the opportunity to
learn the rules of social intercourse.

I saw some American girls and men on official occasions at private
houses and at official functions. They were clever, attractive,
fascinating; but when they came to the end of their visit, they rose to
go, and then stood talking, talking, talking. They did not know exactly
how to get away. They did not want to be abrupt nor appear to be glad
to leave.

It would have been so simple for some one to say to them: "One of the
first rules in social life is to get up and go when you are at the end
of your visit."

I was in Paris when Marshal Joffre gave the American Ambassador, Mr.
Sharp, the gold oak leaves as a token of France's veneration for
America. There were young girls around us who did not hesitate to
comment on everybody there. One little New Jersey girl insisted rather
audibly that Clemenceau looked like the old watchman on their block;
and a boy, a young officer, complained that General Foch "had not won
as many decorations as General Bliss and General Pershing." Some
youngsters asked high officers for souvenirs. Many French people
perhaps did worse, but it hurt me to see even a few of our own spl