Lavendale found his way to the American Embassy early on the following morning, and interviewed his friend Mr. Washburn.
'I have only had a formal acknowledgment,' Mr. Washburn replied, 'except that they added a code word they don't often make use of, and which I take to indicate a pat on the back for you.'
'Is it true,' Lavendale continued, dragging a chair up to the side of Mr. Washburn's desk, 'that Berlin has given Washington to understand that unless she changes her attitude toward the Allies and withdraws her objection to submarine warfare, she will no longer respect the Monroe Doctrine?'
'_Pourparlers_ to that effect,' Mr. Washburn confessed, 'have passed. How did you come to hear of them?'
Lavendale smiled a little grimly, yet with some self-satisfaction.
'I am getting on the track of something else which promises to be even more interesting,' he went on. 'Tell me, how do we stand with Japan just now?'
'Still friction--always friction,' he admitted. 'The whole thing is too ridiculous. Personally, I consider our Western States are very much to blame. We have never before raised the cry 'America for the Americans only,' and it's too late to do it now. And the fact of it is you see, the Western States simply decline to fall in with Washington Policy. Then the trouble comes. Any particular reason for asking?'
'I don't know yet,' Lavendale replied. 'There's a Japanese fellow named Komashi in my line of business, seems to be very busy just lately. I only caught on to it last night, though. Chief well?'
'We are all overworked,' Washburn replied. 'We have had to send Barclay over to Berlin to get a personal report about the prisoners' camps there. Then we get enough questions from Germany ourselves, about their prisoners here, to swamp the place.'
He walked down the steps from Spring Gardens into St. James's Park and sat for a time upon a seat. Exactly in front of him, the upper floors of one of the big houses in Carlton Terrace had been turned into a hospital, and he could see the soldiers lying about in long chairs, a few of them entertaining guests. Behind him was the long row of huts built by the Admiralty. A troop of soldiers swung along the broad road, a loudly playing band heralded the approach of a little company of recruits. Save for these things, London seemed as usual. From where he sat, the hum and the roar of the great city came as insistently as ever to his ears. His thoughts had travelled back to New York. How long, he wondered? ...