The talk on the streets, in hotels, in the clubs of Detroit, was all of Mexico now; bets were heard here and there as to whether Pershing would capture Villa, and sporting wiseacres offered odds on the fugitive. When the bearing of European events upon America were discussed the conversation was generally without form and void. The common attitude was that we would not be drawn into it, but why we would not, or how we would be kept out, or what the whole significance of matters might be, nobody seemed to know. There was a deal of bewilderment in those days, not a little smug complacency and asinine confidence in our immunity to such a disease as war. Confused thinking was the rule, and the clearest-headed could but grope and guess and find such comfort as he could in hopes for the best. If ever a nation in the history of the world was perplexed, baffled, had not, in the phrase of the street, the least notion where it was at, then the United States was such a nation in those spring days of 1916. The nation did not stand where it had stood a year before; there had been advances, imperceptible, perhaps, to one not a close observer of popular phenomena. But opinion against Germany was more solidified; irritation was growing; everywhere you encountered an attitude which seemed to say, "Germany doesn't want to crowd us too far." Yet you would have had to search long and carefully to find a man who wanted war. Of course there was Roosevelt, but, then, what else would one expect of Roosevelt? Detroit, representing the attitude of the Middle West, rather sneered at the seaboard for its nervousness. New York had the jumps, one was told. In New York people were really excited about the situation. Detroit laughed. A thousand miles lay between her and tidewater; she had no reason to sit up nights worrying about the arrival of a hostile fleet. She was safe, knew she was safe, and saw no reason why anybody else should worry. She was safe, and she was growing richer every time the hands circled the clock. New York was never going to bully nor frighten Detroit into any war-hysteria. Potter was no more certain of future events than the rest; but he was different in this, that he was for insuring our property, as it were. There was a chance, a remote chance, possibly, of the worst happening. Potter was getting ready for that worst--and if it failed to materialize, so much the better.