ONE THOUSAND FAMOUS THINGS ail
Nothing Like it Ever Seen on This Planet
AS for the British, there never was such a race. They absolutely
hold the Seven Seas. They sent to France the largest army any
people ever sent over the sea. They are financing most of their allies
and they have turned this whole island into gun and shell factories.
They made a great mistake at the Dardanelles and they are slower
than death to change their set methods, but no family in the land,
from charcoal burners to dukes, hesitates one moment to send its sons
into the army. When the news comes of their death they never
whimper. When you come right down to hard facts, the courage and
the endurance of the British and the French excel anything ever before
seen on this planet. All the old stories of bravery from Homer down
*a$4coitdone every day by these people. Walter Page
Talking to George the Third
TJ AD it not been for the fact that both Page and Grey had an under-
Jrl standing sense of humour, neutrality would have proved a more
difficult path than it actually was.
One of the curious memorials preserved in the British Foreign
Office is the cancelled £3,000,000 cheque with which Great Britain
paid the Alabama claims. • That the British should frame this
memento of their great diplomatic defeat, and hang it in the Foreign
Office is an evidence of the fact that the English are excellent sports-
men. Sir Edward Grey used frequently to call Page's attention
to this document.
One day the two men were discussing certain detentions of
American cargoes—high-handed acts which, in Page's opinion, were
unwarranted. Suddenly his eye was attracted by the framed
Alabama cheque. He leaned over, peered at it intently, and then
quickly turned to the Foreign Secretary .- "If you don't stop these
seizures, Sir Edward, some day you'll have your entire room papered
with things like that.95
Not long afterwards Sir Edward scored on Page. The Ambassador
called to present one of the many State Department notes. It not
infrequently happened that these notes could not be presented to the
British Government; they were so rasping and undiplomatic. On
such occasions it was the practice of the London Embassy to smooth
down the language before handing the paper to the Foreign Secretary.
The present note was one of this kind, but Page decided to transmit
the communication in its original shape.
Sir Edward glanced over the document, looked up, and remarked,
with a twinkle in his eye, u This reads as though they thought they
are still talking to George the Third.**
The roar of laughter that followed was something quite unprece-
dented amid the dignified walls of the Foreign Office,
Life and Letters of Wafer Page