ple do not go about inventing rumors, except for
purposes of hoax; and even a practical joke is never (to parody the
proverb) hoax et praeterea nihil. There is always a reason for wanting to
perpetrate the hoax, or a reason for believing it will be believed.

Rumors are a kind of exhalation or intellectual perfume thrown off by
the news of the day. Some events are more aromatic than others; they can
be detected by the trained pointer long before they happen. When things
are going on that have a strong vibration--what foreign correspondents
love to call a "repercussion"--they cause a good deal of mind-quaking.
An event getting ready to happen is one of the most interesting things
to watch. By a sort of mental radiation it fills men's minds with
surmises and conjectures. Curiously enough, due perhaps to the innate
perversity of man, most of the rumors suggest the exact opposite of what
is going to happen. Yet a rumor, while it may be wholly misleading as to
fact, is always a proof that something is going to happen. For instance,
last summer when the news was full of repeated reports of Hindenburg's
death, any sane man could foresee that what these reports really meant
was not necessarily Hindenburg's death at all, but Germany's approaching
military collapse. Some German prisoners had probably said "Hindenburg
ist kaput," meaning "Hindenburg is done for," i.e., "The great offensive
has failed." This was taken to mean that he was literally dead.

In the same way, while probably no one seriously believes that Lenine is
in Barcelona, the mere fact that Madrid thinks it possible shows very
plainly that something is going on. It shows either that the Bolshevik
experiment in Petrograd has been such a gorgeous success that Lenine can
turn his attention to foreign campaigning, or that it has been such a
gorgeous failure that he has had to skip. It does not prove, since the
rumor is "unconfirmed," that Lenine has gone anywhere yet; but it
certainly does prove that he is going somewhere soon, even if only to
the fortress of Peter and Paul. There may be some very simple
explanation of the rumor. "You go to Barcelona!" may be a jocular
Muscovite catchword, similar to our old saying about going to Halifax,
and Trotzky may have said it to Lenine. At any rate it shows that the
gold dust twins are not inseparable. It shows that Bolshevism in Russia
is either very strong or very near downfall.

When we were told not long ago that Berlin w