I got out of the car to avoid a useless dispute, and entered the large courtyard of a sumptuous private residence in which the garden party was being held. All that Berlin has left in the way of Society was there, _chic_ little ladies dressed in the French style, drinking Russian tea, lounging about or sitting at small tables in true English fashion. Without a doubt, this is the ideal setting for a garden party in favour of the German War Fund! A smart young girl came towards me and put a small silk flag in my buttonhole--a German flag, of course; I had to give her a ten-marks note for it, as other people at my side had just done. Of all the little sins I had to commit to carry out successfully my Berlin trip, indispensable white lies, and misleading silences, the one which I have the most on my conscience is certainly the contribution of ten marks to the German War Fund! Through a wide arch we passed from the courtyard into a fairly large garden, in which different tents had been erected for the sale of flowers, small china pieces, and all the other useless, ugly little things one is prepared to buy at a charity bazaar. The picture postcard stall specially attracted my attention, as most of the cards referred to the war. I got a large selection of masterpieces of bad taste, cheap symbolism, and antediluvian humour. I carefully kept far from the buvette in which the Princess of Thurn and Taxis was selling by auction glasses of Moselle wine at fantastic prices. One of the officers in my company the previous night bumped into me while trying to escape from a persistent flower girl. He was the man so well informed about London life in war time, and as he, too, seemed to consider the garden party a very dangerous social function (probably from different motives from my own) we left of common accord without being caught again. He gave me some news about the war, and said Antwerp was about to capitulate. "We shall get into the town in one or two days," he said. "It is the intention of the Kaiser to occupy the whole of Belgium and to advance on the north coast of France, so as to cut the usual lines of communication with England." He said also that the official reports from the eastern theatres of operation were very satisfactory (for Germany), and concluded: "The Russians don't trouble very much about us; their main objects are the southern Austrian provinces and, if possible, Turkey."