It’s overdeveloped, overspeculated and overleveraged.

Last evening, at the Free Trade Club, a dinner was given by Hon. Robert R. Roosevelt to a large number of his friends. Though invitations had been issued for a week previous, the feast was decidedly of an impromptu character as far the viands went. … Cards of invitation of an amusing character were issued, on which the menu was indicated, with the names of the improvised cooks who were to concoct gumbo, lobster cutlets, plumb pudding, various salads, and coffee. […] Course followed course in the most tumultuous way. Culinary inspirations and cookery nocturnes of all flavors and tastes crowded one on another. Anything like system was discarded, and this was thought likely to destroy the artistic effects of this pot-luck picnic.

And the British mandarin Left, like their contemporaries in the Foreign Office, had little time for the travails of the small countries between Germany and Russia, whom they had always regarded as something of a nuisance.

Never was there such a juggle as was played in my mind, nor so artful an instiller of loose principles, as my Tutor