It being the property of the royal
family, I found two old pensioners of the Imperial Forest Service in
charge. They had a good fire going in the grate, which was welcome,
for it was still a little damp and chilly, especially in this wet
mountain forest.
Patroling both ends of the road were a number of gendarmes. They were
scattered through the woods, too, forming a cordon through which no
one could come. Indeed, they had challenged me. About three o'clock
in the afternoon the German and Austrian envoys came out from the
hotel, and at a quarter to four (I remember Waechter remarking
"They're three-quarters of an hour late!") the chug of a motor
announced the others, Lord Haldane and Winston Churchill.
I had never happened to meet Haldane before, and I found him the
English gentleman personified--polished and reserved. Yet his
reserve, tempered by age, blended into a genial mellowness. The usual
English arrogance had evidently been subdued by reason of his training
and cosmopolitan knowledge. In speech and action he was a
Chesterfield, but in appearance he was not unlike a canon or a bishop,
a little ascetic looking, and rather bald.
Quite the other type of Anglo-Saxon, still boyish in looks,
high-strung and nervous, erratic in speech and action, just a bit
self-conscious, Winston Churchill was the youngest member of this
remarkable gathering.
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