I was afraid of them. I was afraid
that when my general abandoned me the others might not prove so
slow-witted or so kind. My general also seemed to regard them with
disfavor. He exclaimed impatiently. Apparently, to force his way
through them, to cool his heels in an anteroom, did not appeal. It was
long past his luncheon hour and the restaurant of the Palace Hotel
called him. He gave a sharp order to the chauffeur.
"I go on to Brussels," he said. "Desire you to accompany me?" I did
not know how to ask him in French not to make me laugh. I saw the
great Palace of Justice that towers above the city with the same
emotions that one beholds the Statue of Liberty, but not until we had
reached the inner boulevards did I feel safe. There I bade my friend a
grateful but hasty adieu, and in a taxicab, unwashed and unbrushed, I
drove straight to the American legation. To Mr. Whitlock I told this
story, and with one hand that gentleman reached for his hat and with
the other for his stick. In the automobile of the legation we raced to
the Hotel de Ville. There Mr. Whitlock, as the moving-picture people
say, "registered" indignation.
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