An amusing joke, which tickled all Paris was perpetrated shortly afterward. The editor of the _Bonsoir_ imported six hundred copies of the forbidden Treaty from Switzerland, and sent them as a present to the Deputies of the Chamber, whereupon the parliamentary authorities posted up a notice informing all Deputies who desired a copy to call at the questor's office, where they would receive it gratuitously as a present from the _Bonsoir._ Accordingly the Deputies, including the Speaker, Deschanel, thronged to the questor's office. Even solemn-faced Ministers received a copy of the thick volume which I possessed ever since the day it was issued. Another glaring instance of the lack of straightforwardness which vitiated the dealings of the Conference with the public turned upon the Bullitt mission to Russia. Mr. Wilson, who in the depths of his heart seems to have cherished a vague fondness for the Bolshevists there, which he sometimes manifested in utterances that startled the foreigners to whom they were addressed, despatched through Colonel House some fellow-countrymen of his to Moscow to ask for peace proposals which, according to the Moscow government, were drafted by himself and Messrs. House and Lansing. Mr. Bullitt, however, who must know, affirms that the draft was written by Mr. Lloyd George's secretary, Mr. Philip Kerr, and himself and presented to Lenin by Messrs. Bullitt, Steffins, and Petit. If the terms of this document should prove acceptable the American envoys were empowered to promise that an official invitation to a new peace conference would be sent to them as well as to their opponents by April 15th. The conditions--eleven in number--with a few slight modifications in which the Americans acquiesced--were accepted by the dictator, who was bound, however, not to permit their publication. The facts remained secret until Mr. Bullitt, thrown over by Mr. Wilson, who recoiled from taking the final and decisive step, resigned, and in a letter reproduced by the press set forth the reasons for his decision.[88]