My thoughts were suddenly broken into by the unusual action of a man who skipped backwards in front of me, and before I realized it a huge kodak was aimed at me. A few paces further on a man of rather humble appearance addressed me as “Miss Sheridan.” He took his hat off and held it in his hand while he told me that he had heard me lecture, and had read everything I had written. “I am a Russian” he said--“and I felt that you had the good of Russia at heart ... I just wanted to thank you.” I thanked him, shook hands, and walked on. Queer place, Fifth Avenue! SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1921. Colonel William Boyce Thompson sent his car for me at twelve, and I drove out to his place in Yonkers on the Hudson. There I found a Russian gathering! Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Robbins, Colonel Thatcher and the Wardwells. The house is beautiful, full of pictures. I wonder if Botticelli could have had any premonition that he was painting to decorate the stately homes of America. I keep wondering why there are enough Botticelli’s to go round. We lunched in a room that had six French Windows facing the garden that slopes down to the Hudson River. At least, so I discovered afterwards, but the windows were thickly and tightly and most carefully curtained so that one could not at all see out. All during lunch I longed to pierce the veil. Immediately afterwards we went out into the sun on the terrace, and I begged that we might sit out, and not in. Conversation on Russia was very stimulating, but as I was none too sure of my host’s exact sentiments, I talked rather guardedly. He may be labelled “the Bolshevik millionaire,” but it does not mean that he is Bolshevik. Almost any unprejudiced person is labelled Bolshevik in this country! Colonel Thompson told us that when he got back from Russia, the papers published his photograph between Lenin’s and Trotzky’s! When Thatcher got back, Col. Thompson told him there was might little difference between hero and zero, as it is understood here; and having experienced certain things, they went to meet Raymond Robbins on his arrival to prepare him. Never had I heard three more hearty laughters, than these three men reminiscing over their reception in this country on their return from Russia. I said to them, “It’s all very well to laugh, but knowing what you do, mightn’t you go to the rescue of the floundering stranger, landing in equal plight on your shores?” They laughed the more, “We like to see it ... we like to watch, and then gather the sufferer to our fold!”