In war time two o'clock in the morning is no hour for honest men to prowl around wharfs.

So we were given to understand by very wide-awake sentries with bayonets, policemen, and enthusiastic special constables.

But at last we reached the consulate and laid siege.

One man pressed the electric button, kicked the door, and pounded with the knocker, others hurled pebbles at the upper windows, and the fifth stood in the road and sang: "Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light ?" A policeman arrested us for throwing stones at the consular sign.

We explained that we had hit the sign by accident while aiming at the windows, and that in any case it was the inalienable right of Americans, if they felt like it, to stone their consul's sign.