November 6th, Friday.
Just the moment I finished breakfast this morning, I dashed into town, that is, as fast as an old tramcar could take me, to the American Consul. In my impatience, I fancy I must have rung his bell several times, though it was really a long while before the servant opened the door and showed me in to the library. Then Mr. Z. (a German-sounding name), the Consul, appeared, unshaven and with the evidence of his morning meal upon his face—it was yellow.
But nothing mattered to me and I plunged into the subject of getting a passport for to-morrow without preliminaries. Perhaps I took the poor man's breath away, for certainly he was not nearly as enthusiastic as I about it. In fact, he embarked upon a dissertation pertaining to the invaders which made me cry out in astonishment, "Why, you surprise me, you seem to have pro-enemy tendencies." "Well," he said, "they've done everything they've said they have, haven't they?"
I asked him if he had seen Louvigné or Visé yet and he said, "No, I haven't ben up t' Visé yet."
All this, however, was far from the point in question and I finally got back to it by informing him of the good fortune I was going to have to-morrow in getting away to Holland in the Dutch Consul's automobile if I could get my passport from the Germans. It did not occur to me that there would be any difficulty about it, so I calmly asked him if he could get it for me by six o'clock to-night?
"Oh, no," he replied, "I could not get it before two or three days."
"But," I protested, aghast, "I am going to-morrow and it is a chance in a thousand; I may not have another such opportunity during the war. Could you not make an especial effort to get it for me?"
"Well," he answered, "I'll do what I can but I won't promise anything. I'm not agoing to ask any favors of those people," i.e., the Germans.
"It is not a favor," I replied, "it is your right. For what other reason is an American Consul if he is not to protect his people, particularly in wartime?"