He traveled across the country,
cajoled the authorities in Washington into giving him a passport,
crossed the ocean, ran the British blockade and entered the forbidden
land. Straight as an arrow he went to the last address in his
brother-in-law's letters. That gentleman, coming home to his lunch,
tired, worried and almost penniless, found his Californian kinsman
smoking calmly in his room. The Native Son left money enough to pay for
the rest of the year of study and the journey home. Then he started on
the long trip back.
In the English port at which his ship touched, he was mistaken for a
disloyal newspaper man for whom the British Secret Service had long been
seeking. He was arrested, searched and submitted to a very disquieting
third degree. When they asked him in violent explosive tones what he
went into Germany for, he replied in his mild, unexcited Western voice -
to give his brother-in-law some money. All Europe is accustomed to crazy
Americans of course, but this strained credulity to the breaking point;
for nobody who has not tried to travel in the war countries can realize
the sheer unbelievability of such guilelessness. The British laughed
loud and long. His papers were taken away and sent to London but in a
few days everything was returned.
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