ncken about it, with the result that
the wires are hot. I hope to hear to-night that they are free. These are
parlous times to be travelling with correspondence.

I may have to get away any minute for Antwerp, to see if we cannot
arrange to get flour down here for the city. There is enough for only a
few days now, and there will be trouble when the bread gives out.

We have now been charged with Japanese interests; that makes six
Legations we have to look after.

* * * * *

_Wednesday._--Late yesterday afternoon I got a note from Princess
P---- de B----, asking me to go to see her. I got away from my toil and
troubles at seven, and went up to find out what was the matter. The old
lady was in a terrible state. A member of her immediate family married
the Duke of ----, a German who has always lived here a great deal. At
the beginning of the war, things got so hot for any one with any German
taint that they cleared out. For the last few days, German officers have
been coming to the house in uniform asking to see the Princess. The
servants have stood them off with the statement that she was out, but
she cannot keep that up indefinitely. They are undoubtedly anxious to
see her, in order to give her some messages from the ----'s, some of her
other relatives in Germany; but if it gets around town that she is
receiving officers in uniform the town will be up in arms, and the
lady's life would be made miserable whenever the Germans do get out. She
wanted me to start right away for Antwerp and take her along, so that
she could send her intendant around afterward to say that she was away
on a journey, and could not see the officers who had been sent to see
her. I laboured with her, and convinced her that the best thing was to
be absolutely frank. She is going to send her intendant around to see
von der Lancken, and explain to him frankly the embarrassment to which
she would be subjected by having to receive officers at her home. I am
sure that Lancken will realise the difficult situation the old lady is
in, and will find some way of calling his people off.

Went down to the Palace and had dinner with Pousette and Bulle and
Cavalcanti, who were full of such news as there is floating around the
town. There is a growing impression that the Germans do intend to invest
Antwerp, and the Belgians are apparently getting ready for that
contingency--by inundating a lot more of the count