62 WITH MR. CHAMBERLAIN IN THE 



"The diplomatic reception room, in which the Com- 

 missioners meet, is the most sumptuous apartment 

 Uncle Sam has yet furnished. It is on the second 

 floor of the huge State War and Navy Building, 

 adjoining Secretary Bayard's office chamber to the 

 west. It is twenty-five feet wide by forty in length. 

 Its huge windows look out to the south over the 

 tawny Potomac and the great white shaft of the 

 Washington Monument. The Commissioners sit 

 at a magnificent ebony table drawn up near the mas- 

 sive old-fashioned fireplace at the west end of the 

 room. Here and there, in careless arrangement, 

 over the highly polished oak floor are scattered 

 Bokhara rugs of the most exquisite pattern and 

 colour. In the centre of the room is a large circular 

 divan. The walls are painted a yellow green, and 

 the groined iron ceilings are done in a light 

 modern Pompeian shade, and stencilled in colours 

 that suggest very strongly the interior of a Pullman 

 Palace car. All the furniture of the room — the 

 heavy, sumptuous chairs and sofas — is made of 

 highly polished ebony and upholstered in sage- 

 green brocades. 



" The English Commissioners sit on the right hand 

 side of the table near the window, with the American 

 Commissioners facing them. Mr. Chamberlain 

 lounges easily in his chair, his big gold-rimmed eye- 

 glass seldom being out of his eye. Adjoining him on 

 his left is the heavy leonine figure of Sir Charles 

 Tupper, who is a genuine Englishman in every word 

 and move. Sir Lionel Sackville West, a slight, red- 



