uthed in
the streets, utterly oblivious to everything but the machine which was
creeping across the sky.

The French already take their daily Taube as much as a matter of
course as their daily cafe. They cannot help exclaiming in admiration
"quel aplomb!" It is now the fourth day that a German aeroplane has
passed over the French armies, eluded the French machines, and braved
a murderous fire from the waiting guns of Paris.

The incidents have been marked by singularly ineffective shooting on
both sides. The aeroplanes have thrown a dozen bombs; they have broken
windows and roof slates and have killed one old woman. But this has
been, as far as I know, the only casualty. On the other hand, the
Taubes likewise have escaped unwrecked, in spite of the fact that
enough ammunition has been expended against them to have smashed all
the aeroplanes in the world. The psychological effect on the Parisians
has been immense.

For two weeks now, I have been entirely ready to start on my first
tour of the detention camps. The need has seemed so pressing that I
have been prepared to start immediately on the receipt of permission
from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Herrick rightly refuses to
allow me to start without this permission. The reason for the delay
seems to be that France insists that she will accord us only those
privileges with regard to her German prisoners that the German
government gives to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin with regard to the
French prisoners in Germany. The hitch is that each takes exactly the
same ground, so neither side does anything definite.

Such is European "diplomacy." The onus of the prisoners' condition
cannot be said to rest upon our shoulders. Mr. Herrick or Mr. Bliss
has made _demarches_ in the matter almost every day.

Diplomacy is a trade which I find extremely hard to learn. Its
principal rule seems to be never to do anything that you can possibly
avoid. Such principles naturally give rise to a great deal of futile
routine. When a diplomat must act, he methodically follows a
well-trodden and known-to-be-safe path; when he is forced to
take a new direction he invariably makes some superior take the
responsibility. I know that on one occasion a trivial question was
asked of a Jaeger at the door of a European _Chancellerie_; it was
passed through eight people of increasing rank and finally reached the
ruler of a great nation. I wonder if the applicant was kept waiting at
the door by