The night was warm and the windows all open. The boulevards were dense with shouting people. There was no mistaking the cries on this night. "À Berlin—À Berlin," echoed above the roar of the traffic and the mob. Cuirassiers frequently rode through the streets but the crowd immediately surged in behind them.
At ten o'clock the concierge mounted to protest against the street door being open. She was afraid. She was alone in the loge. I told her that the business of the office required the doors kept unlocked. She went away and in a few moments came back with the proprietor of the building, whom she had called by telephone. He insisted on closing the street door. I told him this was a violation of my lease. In view of the circumstances he persisted in his demand. I wheeled my chair about and said to him:
"This office remains open—all night if I desire. It is a newspaper office and we cannot close. If you interfere with me I guarantee that I will keep a man there, but if necessary that man will be a soldier."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that I will apply to the American Embassy for the protection of my rights as an American citizen."
He went away and that difficulty ended.
I turned back to my work. I wrote thousands of words that night; when not writing I was dictating, and piecing together the reports of my assistants.
Mr. Duranty returned from the Bourse. His clothes were awry and he was trembling with excitement. He had diverged, in his return trip, to the Gare du Nord, to get a story of the stormy scenes there—thousands, chiefly Americans, fighting for places in the trains for England. He had been arrested, he explained. Oh, yes, he had been surrounded by a mob at the Gare, who spotted him as a foreigner, and the police had rescued him. He explained his identity and was released.
At the end of the story he suddenly leaped across the room to the window. I leaped at the same moment and so did the stenographer. Across the boulevard was a store that dealt in objects of art. The proprietor was a German. During the day he had boarded the place with stout planks. As we reached the window the sound of splitting and tearing planks sounded above even the cries and roars of the angry people. One look and Duranty was out of the office and in the street.