one generation their industrious and arrogant neighbour had not only killed their people, but laid waste their territory, and added that he and his compatriots did not feel their moral and financial sufferings had been treated either with sufficient sympathy or justice.

He argued extremely well, and I felt as I left him that we ought to do everything possible to remove the suspicions, and heal the wounds, of a country at whose side we have fought and died.

I dined that night in a company of fifty at the British Embassy and had some talk with our Ambassador, Sir Auckland Geddes.

VI: DETROIT AND CHICAGO

VI.
DETROIT AND CHICAGO

GUEST OF WOMEN'S CLUB—VISITS FORD WORKS—LOVELY MRS. MINOTTO—BONUS AND DISABLED SOLDIERS

THE next morning we left Washington for Detroit, where I met with a warm welcome and lectured with success. I was entertained by the Women's City Club, at whose original invitation I had gone to Detroit. They were interesting women who all had some work of their own to do, and talked to me about serious matters with keenness and freedom. I told them, in saying good-bye, that I had been honoured by meeting them at lunch, and hoped some of them would write when they had time and tell me a little more about their lives.

After lunch we motored in a beautiful Hudson car—lent to us through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Chapin who had been introduced to me by my artist friend Nellie Komroff—to the great Ford works at Highland Park. I regret to say I have never understood machinery, and the deafening noise, smell of oil, and endless walking exhausted me. I was also unlucky in finding Mr. Ford away, as I would have much liked to have met him. He is a man who has rendered a great service to his country, as he has put at the disposal of nearly everybody automobiles of low price and high quality.

* * * * * * *

We travelled that night to Columbus in the same sort of horrible train—shaky, hot, and stopping outside before jerking into the stations. Upon our arrival, a stranger came up to us on the platform and said he hoped we would let him take us and our luggage to any place we liked; that he had loved my book and was going to hear my lecture. We were delighted to accept his invitation and were whizzed off to the hotel. Mr. Jeffries, the owner of the motor, was more than kind and enthusiastic. I tried to distinguish his handsome face in a ballroom where I spoke in the evening, but he was in the gallery, and I was too nervous to look much about me.

Ex-Governor Campbell made a witty introductory speech and encouraged my listeners to ask me questions. When it was all over, I was surrounded by various ladies and gentlemen of the audience who introduced themselves and each other to me and asked if I would not eat ices and drink punch, but I was dropping with fatigue and even my handsome friend who was full of congratulations, could not prevent me from staggering off to bed.

I had received a wire from my manager begging me to go by the 7 a.m. train next morning to Chicago in time to see the reporters in the evening. The prospect of this gave me a sleepless night, especially as I was disturbed, first at midnight by a messenger boy with an album which he wished me to sign, and again at two in the morning by the night watchman who said I had neglected to lock my door. I used un-parliamentary language, telling him that nothing would induce me to lock my door, and after an unsuccessful attempt to settle down, I turned on the light and read "If Winter Comes."

The originality and pathos of this wonderful study reduced me to tears and, more dead than alive, at 5.30 a.m. I told my maid I would have my bath.

The reporters at Chicago were very civil and, interspersed with flash-lights, I got through the interviews as well as I could. One of the young ladies, following me to the lift, said:

"I wish you hadn't been so charming and polite. I would like you to have just rushed at me and pulled my hair out so that I could have got the story."

I looked at her in surprise and disgust as Mr. Horton elbowed me into the lift.

I dined that night with a very old friend of mine, Count Minotto, and met the first woman of real beauty that I have seen since I came here. Mrs. Minotto walked into the room with long white arms and a transparently pale face; her dark hair brushed in waves off her forehead was knotted loosely at the back of her neck, and her beautiful eyes glowed with welcome. We talked à trois for three hours and before going away she took me into her night nursery. The nurse woke up, but her lady told her not to move, and after looking at a handsome little boy, she glided to the side of a white cradle. Very tall, in a clinging black crepe dress, I was struck by the beauty of her attitude, and the tenderness of her expression as, leaning across the cot, she removed the coverlet for me to see her little sleeping baby.

I lectured the next night to the biggest and most intelligent audience I had faced since Boston, and when it was over people came on to the stage to congratulate me and ask for my autograph.

On the morning of the 22nd, having asked to see the big Military Hospital, a friend of Mr. Horton's—who had been his secretary during his Foreign Office work in Paris—took us out to see the Speedway Hospital.

We had a long and adventurous drive, skidding in circles on the ice, although we went at an almost funereal pace. Puffs of steam came up from my feet which seemed to emerge from a furnace. Mr. Horton insisted on stopping at a garage for fear the car would catch fire, and our chauffeur in a rough-and-ready manner poured cans of water down the window spaces to do what he could to cool the car.

On arriving at the hospital we were greeted by interviewers and doctors (the latter in khaki),—we had taken with us Miss Allard, a lady reporter of first rate intelligence and fine manners,—and we started to walk round. The military doctor wanted naturally enough to show me the hospital, which I should imagine to be the largest and most perfectly equipped in the world. This solid building extends for over half a mile, and is several storeys high; but I wanted to see the patients, and I loathe long passages and operating paraphernalia. With difficulty I was finally permitted to see the wounded.

It is difficult to make conversation with tired men acclimatized to pain and bed, but I was glad to meet and talk to them.

I have a feeling, which may be wrong, that they are not getting the attention they deserve in this country of money and movies, but the hospital was magnificent, and there at any rate, they are treated with efficiency and understanding.

Perhaps I am not competent to judge, but from what I have observed, the men who fought in the war—many of whom have been either permanently disabled or financially handicapped—are in danger of being forgotten, not by the Government either in the States or any other part of the world, but by the private individual.

The bonus over here, even if it passes, can never be an excuse for the rich and leisured not to go among the wounded either at their homes or in the hospitals. Gassed, crippled and shell-shocked, their outlook at the best can but be forlorn, and I am haunted by a