_Escorted by a varying number of U.S. destroyers, we slipped by eight submarines, and by the end of dinner were in sight of the Irish and Welsh coasts. After the officer commanding the Canadian troops had proposed the King's health, J. H. Thomas proposed the health of President Wilson and the U.S. Navy. A presentation is being made to the Secretary of State by the members of his mission...._ * * * * * _Saturday, June 9th._ _We dropped anchor in the Mersey at about 2.30 a.m. Immediately and for the short remainder of the night some 6,000 troops mobilised for disembarkation. Called at 6.0, but did not enter special train until 11.15. Read that J. H. Thomas has been made a Privy Councillor, which left pleasant taste in the mouth at end of long, varied, interesting and very pleasant mission._ CHAPTER X LONDON AGAIN " ... After a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were painted and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came, slowly as a hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours.... And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and said to him, 'Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?' And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, 'But I was blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I look?' And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman, and said to her, 'Is there no other way in which to walk save the way of sin?' And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and said, 'But you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way....' And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the roadside a young man who was weeping. And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and said to him, 'Why are you weeping?' And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer, 'But I was dead once and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do but weep?'" OSCAR WILDE: _The Doer of Good_. I London during the second half of 1917 differed from London during the late months of 1916 in that, so soon as the United States abandoned neutrality, the Allies were assured of victory unless the German submarine fleet obtained the mastery of the Atlantic and prevented troops and food from reaching Europe or unless the German army, no longer menaced on the eastern frontier since the Russian Revolution, could break through on the west and capture Paris or the channel ports. The second course was tried in March, 1918, the first never ceased to be tried until the armistice; but, whereas in the winter of 1916-17 there was widespread doubt in England whether the war could end otherwise than in a stalemate, from the middle of 1917 it was evident that the war could and would be fought to a finish and that the ultimate military decision lay with the inexhausted and inexhaustible armies of the west.