Ashcroft’s note:

“ July 4 Ⓐtextual note. Lunched at Sir James Knowles’sⒺexplanatory note; attended the banquet in celebration of Independence DayⒺexplanatory note, at the Hotel Cecil.”

I perceived that at Sir James’s I was upon familiar ground, for his house was situated just within the spacious court of the monster human hive called the Queen Anne MansionsⒺexplanatory note, a caravansary which I and my family had helped to supportⒶtextual note and renderⒶtextual note prosperous during a fortnight or so, seven or eight years ago. Damn the place, I remember it well! In that court you stand as in a well whose dull-brown walls stretch away skyward, and so multitudinously perforated with windows is each wall that it looks like a colander. It was an easy mountain to get lost in, and I had that experience many times. There were guide-boardsⒶtextual note Ⓔexplanatory note, but that was not sufficient; there ought to have been guides. It was said that in the course of time many persons had got lost in that place and were never found again, and this was true; for I often met their remains hunting around for their apartments and moaning. There were many dining roomsⒶtextual note in that place and the food was good, and well served; one could not find fault with the service in bedrooms and private parlors, because there wasn’t any; substantially speaking it did not exist. I acquired a prejudice against the place on the first day. Mrs. Clemens needed to go out and buy some necessary things, and she had not much time to spare. I sent down a circular checkⒺexplanatory note to the office to be cashed—a check good for its face in any part of the world, as any ordinary ass would know—but the ass who was assifying for the Queen Anne Mansions on salary didn’t know it; indeed I think that his assitude transcended any assfulness I have ever met in this world or elsewhere. We waited, anxiously and [begin page 111] impatiently, half an hour, then sent down to know what the trouble was. The answer returned was that the office had sent the check, by a boy, on foot, to a bank up townⒶtextual note to find out whether it was good or not. I never said a word, but took other measures; I mean I never said a word that was proper—but just took other measures. I sent down a fresh, new, crisp fifty-pound Bank of England note and asked the office to retain it and send me some money on it—quick! There was also other security—twelve trunks and a sick child, which was Clara; at least I said she was sick, in order to inspire confidence in the office that we couldn’t get away unobserved. They sent back the note and asked me to endorse it. Which I did, though it seemed to me that it was not any better or stronger then than it was before, when it had only the Bank of England back of it. I found afterward that it was a common thing, in Great Britain, to decline to take a Bank of England note from a stranger, unendorsedⒶtextual note by him, but this was my first experience of the custom, and I thought it was meant as an affront.Ⓐtextual note It was strange—it has always seemed strange,Ⓐtextual note to me—that I did not burn the Queen Anne Mansions. As I stood now, at this distant day, gazing up the walls of that well, I found that the lapse of time had modified my bitterness, and that I was glad I had not burned it—not very glad, but glad, just glad.

As I stood there with my mind wandering back over the past I called to mind a very interesting conversation which I had had on the first night of our stay in that house—a conversation with an English gentleman who hadⒶtextual note sent in his card after dinnerⒺexplanatory note, then followed it in person by my request. It was the last day of September. Relations between England and the Transvaal were in a very strained condition, but that was all:Ⓐtextual note that that little handful of Boers down there would actually stand out until war should become a necessity, was unthinkable; their high attitude must surely be only a “bluff.”Ⓐtextual note This gentleman surprised me by saying it was not a bluff, and that there would certainly be a war; I think he even said he knew it, but I am not quite sure as to that. He was a colonel in the British army and had seen long service in India, in the artillery. He uttered two predictions, and framed them in quite positive language: to wit, that the war would break out in eleven daysⒺexplanatory note, and that it would be an artillery war. It was uncommonly good prophesying, as the event showed: the war was proclaimed on the 11th of October, and it was an artillery war.

The luncheon at Sir James Knowles’s was in honor of a Prussian princessⒺexplanatory note of the blood. She was young and handsome and queenly, and was quite unroyally gifted intellectually; she seemed to know a good deal about everything, and to know it well; well enough to talk about it ably and entertainingly. She was an expert with the brush, and in music, and in designing and embroidery, and in several other fine arts; in fact in the matter of accomplishments she was a wonder, considering her place in the social world. London is certainly a wealthy place in distinguished human beings; no other city approaches it in this respect; she can furnish samples to several scores of dinners and luncheons at one time, and have more left.