Bucarest, to one of the fire-eating retired generals, picturing the
quaint old fellow as thinking that people were born only to die bravely,
and knowing nothing of Rumania's rule as the "defender of Latinism" in
the Balkans, "tooting the funereal flute and showing us the mountains--
there is to be your tomb!"

There was a time, when the Russians were taking Przemysl, when Rumania's
tide seemed to be at the flood--if ever it was going to be. That chance
was lost, and Rumania found herself standing squarely in the track of
the stream of ammunition which used to flow down from Duesseldorf to the
Turks--when I was at the front with the Turks, practically all the
ammunition boxes I saw, and there were hundreds of them, were marked
"Gut uber Rumanien"--and, later, in Russia's path to Bulgaria and
Servia.

One of these days a hot thrill might run down the Calea Vittorei, and
all at once Capsa's and the other little booths in this miniature Vanity
Fair would seem strange and far-away. But until that day one could
fancy the romanticists and realists lambasting each other in the papers,
the soldiers grinding away in their dusty camps, the pretty ladies
rolling gayly down the sprinkled asphalt, and the chanteuse singing over
the footlights:

"Que pense le Premier Ministre? On n'sait pas--"

("What thinks the Prime Minister? Nobody knows--")

"Is he for the Germans? Has he made a convention With perfidious Albion?
Nobody knows..."