XVII—A WALK WITH AMBASSADOR GERARD
August 15th.
Went to Herringsdorf on the one o'clock train Saturday with Lithgow Osborne and Christian Herter. The Ambassador was in Herringsdorf with Aileen and Lanier Winslow....
After dinner we went for a walk on the pier. I was with the Ambassador, who kept making his dry, humorous remarks about everyone. Soon a guard turned us back.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"You are in Germany," replied Mr. Gerard. "Don't forget that. They wait until they find out that people like to do a thing, and then at once they forbid it."
"What I'd like best, Mr. Gerard," said I, "would be to hear you talk to the powers that be in Germany. It must be rather difficult for them to understand all your jokes."
"It is," he replied. "They can't make me out at all here."
He makes the most glorious remarks to every one. I heard that, apropos of the Lusitania, the Ambassador said to the Chancellor:
"Your argument about the Lusitania amounts to just this. If I were to write a note to your sister and say: 'If you go out on the Wilhelm Platz, I will shoot you!' and if she did go out on the Wilhelm Platz and I shot her—that would be her fault, wouldn't it?"
And one day when Zimmerman remarked: "The United States couldn't go to war with us, because we have 500,000 trained Germans in the United States," the Ambassador replied: "You may have 500,000 trained Germans in the United States, but don't forget that we have 500,001 lamp-posts."