I don't know what they were doing with the lower part of it; it looked as if they were ploughing up the tesselated pavements and getting ready to plant potatoes. One rubbed shoulders with labourers and stumbled over mounds of earth in an endeavour to find an entrance. There were no armed guards. There were no military challenges—no gorgeous uniforms and flashing bayonets. Of whatever Witos may be afraid—and every man is afraid of something—it was evident that he has no dread of assassination. At last we pushed open a narrow door where a shabby porter relieved us of our hats. When we asked for directions, he jerked his thumb casually, indicating a marble staircase. Accepting his advice we found ourselves in a lofty chamber, stripped of all decoration and furniture. There we were met by a Government clerk, who ushered us into an empty ball-room and requested us to wait. It was a palace, yes; but lacking in splendour. Nothing but the husk remained. In imagining the gay scenes that it had witnessed, the pomps and pageants, the triumphs and envies, the vanished glitter of bombastic lavishness, one experienced the kind of pity a faded beauty inspires when her coquetry has been made dreadful by old age. Would we come? The Government clerk was beckoning. As we followed him across the naked expanse of dance-floor there was something intimidating about those echoing vacancies. One thought of the women who had queened it there—the flash of their eyes, luring adoration, the glide of their dainty feet and the quick in-take of their breath. Where were they? Waiting their turn at Madame Lubinoff's soup-kitchen, mouldering in Bolshevist prisons or dead, which was happier. In the smaller room which we entered a man, quite unremarkable at first sight, was seated at a desk. He was the kind of man that you may see by the thousand anywhere from Ellis Island to San Francisco. His face was bony and lined from exposure. He was gone at the knees with overwork. His hands were disfigured with manual labour. He wore the high leather boots of a peasant. His suit was of a cheap shoddy material—tobacco coloured, the kind that shrinks and wrinkles in the rain and sun. In all outward aspects he was a common man—common in his voice, his gestures, his attire. His shirt was rough with a turn down collar; he wore no tie, so one saw the stud. He was the common man of Poland, guiding the nation's destinies. One remembered Lincoln's saying, that God must have loved the common people very much because He had made so many of them. He left his desk and came towards us with a lagging step. With the exactness of simplicity and a curious glance of wonder, he shook our hands each in turn uncordially. Then he signed to us to seat ourselves at a round table.