“Well, goodbye and good luck to you.” 8.30 the following morning therefore saw me at Charing Cross, duly passported and baggaged, bound for Rome. Although Italy had not yet officially declared her intention of joining in with the Allies, it was well known that it was but a matter of a few days before she would do so. The War fever all over Italy was at its height, and there seemed no possibility of anything occurring to influence adversely the decision of the King. The sands of time were rapidly running out, while Count Berchtold, the Austrian Chancellor, was deliberately—for the Allies, fortunately—playing with the destiny of his nation. The centre of interest at the moment was obviously the Capital, so I was anxious to reach it in time to witness the historic scenes of the near future. Rumour had it that so eager was the nation to get to grips with its hereditary foe that a revolution would ensue were the King to hesitate as to his course of action, while it had been an open secret for some weeks that a general mobilisation of the Army and Navy had been in active progress since the commencement of the period of tension. Italy, therefore, was the _point de mire_ of the entire world on the 20th of May, 1915, when I left London, and I could congratulate myself that, thanks to the journalistic _flair_ of Charles Ingram, I should be on the spot in time for anything that might happen. At that date one was still able to reach Paris via Folkestone and Boulogne—England was only just awakening to the fact she was at war—the popular short sea-passage route had not yet been taken over by the military authorities, and although the examination of passports and passengers was severe, there was nothing like the difficulty and delay one now experiences in getting across the Channel. The scheduled time from London to Paris was a mere matter of twelve hours, which, of course, was not excessively long under the circumstances, while as compared with the time the journey occupies to-day via Southampton and Havre, it was rapidity itself. It had been a bit of a rush to get through all I had to do in the twenty-four hours I had at my disposal before leaving London. Consuls will not be hurried even for War-Correspondents, and one’s passport nowadays is far and away the most important article of one’s belongings. There are, moreover, always a hundred and one things that must be done before starting on an expedition of indefinite duration. I know of nothing more irritating when “on the road” than suddenly to discover you have forgotten to bring with you some insignificant but invaluable object which can be easily procured in London but which is unobtainable abroad.