No chance to return to the breakfast-table. There was no time to finish that egg as wildly I rushed to the telephone, begging one or two intimate friends to come and help at once, while a servant went off to neighbours to ask for immediate assistance.
Between signing papers for quickly-arriving packages and struggling to get helpers, a policeman appeared.
“Very sorry, mum, but, you know, you are obstructing the roadway,” he said.
“I cannot help it,” I replied. “I am literally overpowered, and as it is in the cause of charity, I suppose it does not matter.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he answered; “but you must leave some pathway, besides which you are blocking the road; you will be taken up as a public nuisance.”
This was really too much. Telephoning for assistance to a high official at Scotland Yard, who chanced to be a personal friend, he soon sent me a special constable. One was not enough. He had to send for another policeman. But as every little butcher boy told every other little butcher boy what was going on, and as every loafer told every other loafer to come and see, an inspector had also to be requisitioned. For four days we were guarded by three stalwart policemen, who kept an eye on us for a further length of time.
“Pass along, please. Pass along, please,” became a well-known cry in the Terrace. Verily it was a blockade—especially after the papers extolled the novelty of the scene. Then nurses and perambulators came to have a look at us; ladies in grand motors drove round to see the sight; Bath chairs added to the confusion; and, above all, the unemployed at one time threatened serious trouble.
But to go back in the history of events which led to the Siege of York Terrace.
It was Christmas, 1908.
We were only a party of twelve, but amongst my guests was His Excellency the Italian Ambassador, the Marquis di San Giuliano. We ate turkey and plum-pudding, cracked crackers, and made merry in the usual Christmas fashion.