I decided that I had enough to pay my board-bill for the next two weeks and that was a good deal more than others had, many of whom were living on credit or paying with checks and drafts. There were two or three of our guests who did not have dollar to their name, for all the English and French credit had been cut off. At the end of two weeks I saw my funds being depleted and I decided it was necessary to start on another campaign. In the meantime I had received a letter from a cousin in Dresden and I answered that I could use a little money. That week she sent me two hundred dollars, which paid our board-bill and debts accrued on telephone, telegraph and cable messages. When I left I still owed one week's board-bill. At first it looked as though our host did not intend to let us go without paying, but when he saw I was firm about paying no more he yielded, and said the rest could be paid after we got home. Money was so tight there for four weeks that anything beyond spending a penny for a newspaper was considered foolish extravagance, and I scolded my mother one day for spending twenty-five cents for flowers. Every time I took a carriage to make a long business journey I considered myself wicked, and a carriage ride for pleasure was out of the question. The only extravagance I knew was giving some money to the Red Cross society and some generous tips to the men who went off to the war. At times I thought I should forget how to shop if I ever reached the point where I had plenty of money of my own. The condition of Americans in Berlin was not much better. I met friends with less than a dollar in their pockets. A doctor and his wife had come up from Carlsbad to Berlin with a quarter between them. Here they were fortunate enough to meet a friend who loaned them two hundred and fifty dollars for a ticket and traveling expenses. There was a professor and his wife who were trying to get a second-class ticket on a Holland-American boat, though they only had twenty-five dollars in their pockets. They trusted to luck for their ticket and their money. Good fortune favored them, for on their way from Berlin to Holland they met a Southern man, who helped them get their ticket and paid for it. Every day dozens of young girls who had been studying abroad, and teachers off for a summer's holiday, presented themselves at the German Embassy, telling their hard-luck stories of how they were down to the last cent, and that they would have to be home by the time school opened. Mrs. Gerard took care of many of these cases herself and saw to it that they were provided with third-class tickets.