water-front, and there isn't a better place in the city to see what's
happening. I was there last week when the mob attacked the French
Annamite troops. Believe me, friend, that was one hellish business ...
they literally cut those poor little Chinks into pieces. I saw the whole
thing from my window. I'm going back to Fiume to-morrow, and if you like
I'll tell the manager of the Europa to save you a front room."

His tone was that of a New Yorker telling a friend from up-State that he
would reserve him a room in a Fifth Avenue hotel from which to view a
parade.

As things turned out, however, we did not have occasion to avail
ourselves of this offer, for we found that rooms had been reserved for
us at a hotel in Abbazia, just across the bay from Fiume. This
arrangement was due to the Italian military governor, General Grazioli,
who was perfectly aware that the inhabitants of Fiume were not hanging
out any "Welcome-to-Our-City" signs for foreigners, particularly for
foreigners who were country people of President Wilson, and that the
fewer Americans there were in the town the less danger there was of
anti-American demonstrations. In view of what had happened to the
Annamites I had no overpowering desire to be the center of a similar
demonstration. Pursuant to this arrangement we slept in a great barn of
a hotel whose echoing corridors had, in happier days, been a favorite
resort of the wealth and fashion of Hungary, but whose once costly
furniture had been sadly dilapidated by the spurred boots of the
Austrian staff officers who had used it as a headquarters; in the
mornings we had our sugarless coffee and butterless war-bread on a lofty
balcony commanding a superb panorama of the Istrian coast from Icici to
Volosca and of the island-studded Bay of Quarnero, and commuted to and
from Fiume in the big gray Lancia in which we had traveled along the