"'But if you're the excellent English bobby that I believe you to be,'
said I, 'you'll see at once that I'm an honest American artist just here
to do a little sketching.'

"'I tell you,' said he. W'y don't you just pop hup and see 'Is Lordship
the Mayor?'

"And so I did pop up and I told the Lord Mayor my troubles, and he waved
me a hearty wave of his hand and said he'd do anything to oblige an
American, and I came down again, and here was the bobby still very
upright but watching my approach from the tail of his eye. And I
pretended I had never seen him, but as I went past I slipped him a
cigar, and when I passed back again he twinkled his eye. Stuck between
the buttons of his coat, there being no other place, was my fat cigar.

"I made my sketch of the Royal Exchange. I want Americans to see what
can happen if His Imperial Lowness over on the Continent sees fit to
send his Zeppelins to England. Not being big enough nor strong enough to
injure England vitally, he can take this method of injury, he can injure
women and children and maim horses, destroy business and works of art
and blow up the congested districts.

"We have seen what the Savior of the World's Culture could do in France
and Belgium; it is small wonder that all England has in the back of her
head surmises as to what he might accomplish if some of his air craft
crossed the Channel. By which I do not mean to say that the English are
apprehensive. They are not nervous. I have spent more than a month with
them, among my own friends, learning the general temper of the country.

"There are no demonstrations, there is no boasting, no display. London
is much the same as it always was. At night London is darkened, in
accordance with the order of Oct. 9, but that is about all the
difference. It is so dark that you can hardly get up Piccadilly, but
London takes her amusements about as usual. The theatres are not
overcrowded, but neither are they empty. For luncheons and for dinners
Prince's is full, the Carlton is full. The searchlights are playing over
the city looking for those Zeppelins. That is a new wrinkle to me; the
idea of blinding the men up there at the wheel with a powerful light is
a good one.

"These Englishmen have their teeth set. They know perfectly well that
they are fighting for their existence. All this talk of the necessity of
drumming up patriotism in England is bosh. England has no organized
publicity bureau such as Germany, and in contra