The President rose and on leaving I presented a letter from ex-President Roosevelt. It was explained that this was the second letter for him I had had from Colonel Roosevelt, but that when I was a prisoner with the Germans, I had judged it wise to swallow the first one, and that I had requested Colonel Roosevelt to write the second one on thin paper. The President smiled and passed the letter critically between his thumb and forefinger.
“This one,” he said, “is quite digestible.”
I carried away the impression of a kind and distinguished gentleman, who, in the midst of the greatest crisis in history, could find time to dictate a message of thanks to those he knew were neutrals only in name.
CHAPTER II
THE MUD TRENCHES OF ARTOIS
Amiens, October, 1915.
In England it is “business as usual”; in France it is “war as usual.” The English tradesman can assure his customers that with such an “old-established” firm as his not even war can interfere; but France, with war actually on her soil, has gone further and has accepted war as part of her daily life. She has not merely swallowed, but digested it. It is like the line in Pinero’s play, where one woman says she cannot go to the opera because of her neuralgia. Her friend replies: “You can have neuralgia in my box as well as anywhere else.” In that spirit France has accepted the war. The neuralgia may hurt, but she does not take to her bed and groan. Instead, she smiles cheerfully and goes about her duties—even sits in her box at the opera.