The clearing also of the enemy's consulates ended another embarrassing situation. As suggested in a previous chapter, the consulates of the Central Powers were the hot-beds and clearing-houses for spies. The raid upon them by the French proved that this was true. The enforced departure of the German, Austrian, Bulgarian, and Turkish consuls added to the responsibilities of our own who has now to guard their interests. They will be efficiently served. John E. Kehl has been long in our consular service, and is most admirably fitted to meet the present crisis. He has been our representative at Salonika for four years, in which time his experience as consul during the Italian-Turkish War, the two Balkan wars, and the present war, have trained him to meet any situation that is likely to arrive. What that situation may be, whether the Bulgar-Germans will attack Salonika, or the Allies will advance upon Sofia, and as an inevitable sequence draw after them the Greek army of 200,000 veterans, only the spring can tell. If the Teutons mean to advance, having the shorter distance to go, they may launch their attack in April. The Allies, if Sofia is their objective, will wait for the snow to leave the hills and the roads to dry. That they would move before May is doubtful. Meanwhile, they are accumulating many men, and much ammunition and information. May they make good use of it. CHAPTER IX VERDUN AND ST. MIHIEL PARIS, January, 1916. It is an old saying that the busiest man always seems to have the most leisure. It is another way of complimenting him on his genius for organization. When you visit a real man of affairs you seldom find him surrounded by secretaries, stenographers, and a battery of telephones. As a rule, there is nothing on his desk save a photograph of his wife and a rose in a glass of water. Outside the headquarters of the general there were no gendarmes, no sentries, no panting automobiles, no mud-flecked chasseurs-a-cheval. Unchallenged the car rolled up an empty avenue of trees and stopped beside an empty terrace of an apparently empty chateau. At one end of the terrace was a pond, and in it floated seven beautiful swans. They were the only living things in sight. I thought we had stumbled upon the country home of some gentleman of elegant leisure.