the morning is no hour for honest men
to prowl around wharfs. So we were given to understand by very
wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic
special constables. But at last we reached the consulate and laid
siege. One man pressed the electric button, kicked the door, and
pounded with the knocker, others hurled pebbles at the upper
windows, and the fifth stood in the road and sang: "Oh, say, can you
see, by the dawn's early light?"

A policeman arrested us for throwing stones at the consular sign. We
explained that we had hit the sign by accident while aiming at the
windows, and that in any case it was the inalienable right of
Americans, if they felt like it, to stone their consul's sign. He said he
always had understood we were a free people, but, "without meaning
any disrespect to you, sir, throwing stones at your consul's coat of
arms is almost, as you might say, sir, making too free." He then told
us Colonel Swalm lived in the suburbs, and in a taxicab started us
toward him.

Scantily but decorously clad, Colonel Swalm received us, and
greeted us as courteously as though we had come to present him
with a loving-cup. He acted as though our pulling him out of bed at
two in the morning was intended as a compliment. For affixing the
seal to our passports he refused any fee. We protested that the
consuls-general of other nations were demanding fees. "I know," he
said, "but I have never thought it right to fine a man for being an
American."

Of our ambassadors and representatives in countries in Europe other
than France and Belgium I have not written, because during this war I
have not visited those countries. But of them, also, all men speak
well. At the last election one of them was a candidate for the United
States Senate. He was not elected. The reason is obvious.

Our people at home are so well pleased with their ambassadors in
Europe that, while the war continues, they would keep them where
they are.

Chapter IX
"Under Fire"

One cold day on the Aisne, when the Germans had just withdrawn to
the east bank and the Allies held the west, the French soldiers built
huge bonfires and huddled around them. When the "Jack Johnsons,"
as they call the six-inch howitzer shells that strike with a burst of black
smoke, began to fall, sooner than leave the warm fires the soldiers
accepted the chance of being hit by the shells. Their officers had to
order them back. I saw this and wrote of i