Page:Women Wanted.djvu/67

 the Rue Etienne Marcel, I register it and mail it, committing it with a sigh to the mercies of the great Atlantic.

Having crossed the Channel once alive, it seems like tempting fate to try it again. I draw in my breath as one about to plunge into a cold bath in the morning, and go out to secure from three governments the necessary permission that will allow me to return to England. From the police alone it sometimes takes eight days to secure this concession. But at the Prefecture of Police, they read my letter of introduction from the French consul in New York. And I have only to leave my photograph and sign on the dotted line. In five minutes they have given my passport the necessary visé. The American consul easily enough adds his. All my journey apparently is going as pleasantly as a summer holiday planned by a Cook's Agency, when at length I come up with a bump against the British Control office in the Rue Cheveaux Lagarde. And the going away from here requires some negotiations. The British lieutenant in charge reads my nice French letter and without comment tosses it aside. "You wish to go to London?" he asks in great surprise. "Now, why should you wish to go to London?" He gives me distinctly to understand this is not the open season for tourists in England. "We don't care to have people travelling," he says in a tone of voice as if that settles it. "Why have you come over here in