I stayed in the City of Dante for nearly a month, and was fully engaged the whole time working up the sketches I had brought with me from the Front. It was fortunate, as I soon discovered that I had plenty to occupy me, for there was nothing whatever to be seen in Florence that conveyed any suggestion of war. As a matter of fact, the war did not appear to affect the Florentines at all; everything was going on in the city exactly the same as when I was there some few years before, and if you did not read the papers of a day you might have almost forgotten it. I was glad therefore to be able to keep in touch with it through the medium of my work, as I had no desire to live the life of an art student or dilettante here, delightful as it is under normal conditions. Towards the end of July it became known that there was a chance in the near future of a restricted number of Italian and foreign war correspondents being officially recognized and permitted to visit the Front, and I received a friendly letter from Mr. Capel Cure, at the British Embassy, advising me to return forthwith to Rome if I wished to be included in the English group. I left Florence, therefore, by the first train for the capital. For the next few days I haunted 11 bis via Pompeo Magno, the residence of Signor Barzilai, the genial President of the Italian Press Association, and the rooms of Signor Baldassarre, the Head of the Foreign Press Bureau, at the Ministero del Interno, till at last, to my great relief, I was notified that I was on the official list of correspondents. I had been on tenterhooks all the time for fear my escapade at Udine would militate against my being accepted. It was then announced that the chosen few were to muster at Brescia to meet the officers appointed to act as censors and to chaperon them during a tour of the Front, which was to occupy six or seven weeks, and which would cover at least 3,000 kilometres. From Rome to Brescia is quite a long journey, via Milan, where one has to pass a night. There was quite a big gathering at the reception of correspondents in the quaint little Town Hall where we assembled, as, in spite of the weeding-out process which had taken place in Rome, no fewer than forty-one papers were represented—twenty-six Italian, six French, seven English, and two Swiss. As was to be expected, Italian journalism was widely represented. It had no less than twenty-six correspondents, and every town of importance in Italy appeared to have sent someone. I cannot recall the names of all the talented fellows who had been despatched from every corner of the Peninsula to record the doings on the Italian Front.