Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/89

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IN AMERICAN DIPLOMACY
69

the tragedy into an American comedy was the man from home. Down the street a bit from the Embassy lived an American dentist, Dr. Evans. Plots and communes and revolutions, wars and sudden death are nothing to a dentist—at least to a Yankee dentist. In Evans's hands the Prince and the Ambassador deposited the precious and dangerous charge. Suffice it to say that a few days later, after his own method, he saw her safely aboard an English yacht bound for Dover, and returned casually to his business, unknown and unsung.

Washburne's diary records that under these circumstances, and with a state of siege imminent, all the ambassadors representing the European powers picked up their hats in a hurry and left Paris for Tours. The South American consuls followed suit, and left him in charge of the diplomatic business of the world at the capital of France.

His services to these many masters, unique at the time, were conducted with such ability as to endear him and the United States to a