eppelins when they come); but the
war crowds itself in on us sensibly more and more. There are more
wounded soldiers on the streets and in the parks. More and more
families one knows lose their sons, more and more women their
husbands. Death is so common that it seems a little thing. Four
persons have come to my house to-day (Sunday) in the hope that I
may find their missing kinsmen, and two more have appealed to me on
the telephone and two more still have sent me notes. Since I began
this letter, Mrs. Page insisted on my going out on the edge of the
city to see an old friend of many years who has just lost both his
sons and whose prospective son-in-law is at home wounded. The first
thing he said was: "Tell me, what is America going to do?" As we
drove back, we made a call on a household whose nephew is
"missing."--"Can't you possibly help us hear definitely about him?"

This sort of thing all day every day must have some effect on any
man. Then--yesterday morning gave promise of a calm, clear day. I
never know what sensational experience awaits me around the next
corner. Then there was put on my desk the first page of a reputable
weekly paper which was filled with an open letter to me written by
the editor and signed. After the usual description of my
multitudinous and delicate duties, I was called on to insist that
my government should protest against Zeppelin raids on London
because a bomb might kill me! Humour doesn't bubble much now on
this side the world, for the censor had forbidden the publication
of this open letter lest it should possibly cause American-German
trouble! Then the American correspondents came in to verify a
report that a news agency is said to have had that I was deluged
with threatening letters!--More widows, more mothers looking for
lost sons!... Once in a while--far less often than if I lived in a
sane and normal world--I get a few hours off and go to a lonely
golf club. Alas! there is seldom anybody there but now and then a
pair of girls and now and then a pair of old fellows who have
played golf for a century. Yet back in London in the War Office I
hear they indulge in disrespectful hilarity at the poor game I
play. Now how do they know? (You'd better look to your score with
Grayson: the English have spies in America. A