No one supplied me with the details of the final negotiations which were necessary to induce the German Government graciously to consent to permit me to leave Germany alive. I have since learned that my pass was not secured without some extremely forcible remonstrances and representations. Stumm had denounced me as a "scoundrel" and in other knightly terms. Why the German Foreign Office so ardently desired to prevent my departure, after having earlier in the same day declined to promise me immunity from physical harm, is a mystery which I trust it may some day elucidate. To fathom it is beyond my own feeble powers of divination, and in this narrative of farewell tribulations in the Fatherland, I have confined myself strictly to facts. I have resolutely not yielded to the temptation to surmise. But as the official Genesis of Armageddon is not likely to honor me with mention, I have presumed to set forth my own diminutive part in it with perhaps a tiring superfluity of detail. I have the more eagerly ventured to do so because grotesque versions of the "terms" on which I, an American citizen, if you please, "secured permission to leave Germany," have been, and still are, for all I know, in circulation in Berlin. They are believed--and that is the one saddening thought they inspire in me--by people who were once my friends, among them Americans who place bread-and-butter business necessities and social expediency in Germany above the elementary dictates of gratitude and personal loyalty, which are traits one encounters even in a _Dachshund_. It is these insufferable lickers of German bootheels who "have heard" that I "gave my word of honor" to seal my lips forever "about Germany," to "go back to the United States at once" (perhaps as press-agent to Dernburg, who was also leaving Germany), to "renounce all connection with English journalism," and other pledges of equally imbecilic character. The only "broken pledge" which the rumor-mongers did not foist upon me was an outright agreement to join Germany’s army of kept journalists. I should have been better off, financially no doubt, if I had enlisted in that immaculate service, which is one of the best paid in the world. My permit to leave Germany, Harvey said, would be issued during the night and be handed me next morning at the British Embassy. Meantime, evidently to make assurance doubly sure, Ambassador Gerard gave me in his own handwriting an attest that I was leaving the country with Sir Edward Goschen. He affixed to it the great seal of the Embassy, handed me the note with a merry "Good luck," I wrung his hand in a last grip of gratitude and good-by, and we parted company. [Illustration: Ambassador Gerard’s Note]