ished. I have nothing more to do about it. I pack my trunk just curiously wondering, shall I ever wear this gown again? Or shall I not? Oh, well, it is such a relief to be going away from all this Old World grief. Are the war clouds gathering over New York, too? But I still can see the city all golden in the sunlight beneath the clear blue sky.
Last night I was awakened at twelve o'clock by the sounds of a gay supper party's revelry in some room down my corridor. Which of the staid American gentlemen at this hotel is celebrating? Listen. They are singing, evidently with lifted glasses: "Hail, hail, the gang's all here." Not to the national anthem could my heart thrill more than to Tammany's own classic refrain. New York! New York! Not all the Kaiser's submarines can stop me from starting.
I may not send word of the steamship or the date of my departure. But I cable my home office: "If I do not succeed in reporting to you myself, apply for the latest information of my movements, to the International Franchise Club, 9 Grafton Street, London." You see, if I should get the last Long Assignment. …
There are only sixteen first-class passengers for this trip on the Carmania in her grim grey war-paint. Two of us are women, at whom the rest stare with curious interest. Each of us as we step aboard is handed a lifeboat ticket. Mine reads: "R. M. S. Carmania. Name, Mrs. M. P. Daggett, Boat No. 5."
