he gutter for scraps
of food. He was one of an army prowling London's gutters at that moment:
human wolves, questing for scraps of refuse meat. The space between each
prowler was no more than a few yards. This particular wretch was knocked
down by the cab, but not hurt. Cabby and his fares roared out drunken
laughter. The horse was never checked. But in the midst of their
laughter one of the passengers threw out a coin, upon which the human
wolf pounced like a bird of prey. I saw the glint of the coin. It was a
sovereign; very likely the twentieth those men had spent that night. For
that sum, four hundred of the gaunt, gutter-prowling wolves might have
been fed and sheltered.

Entering Holborn I ran against a man I knew, named Wardle, one of the
sub-editors of a Sunday newspaper, then on his way home from Fleet
Street. Wardle was tired and sleepy, but stopped to exchange a few words
of journalistic gossip.

"Rather sickening about the wind-up of the East Anglian Pageant," he
said, "isn't it? Did you hear of it?"

I explained that I had not been in Fleet Street that night, and had
heard nothing.

"Why, there was to be no end of a tumashi for the Saturday evening
wind-up, you know, and we were featuring it. We sent a special man up
yesterday to help the local fellow. Well, just as we'd got in about a
couple of hundred words of his introductory stuff, word came through
that the wires were interrupted, and not another blessed line did we
get. I tell you there was some tall cursing done, and some flying around
in the editorial 'fill-up' drawers. We were giving it first place--three
columns. One blessing, we found the stoppage was general. No one else
has got a line of East Anglian stuff to-night. Ours was the last word
from the submerged city of Ipswich. But it really is rather an odd
breakdown. No sign of rough weather; and, mind you there are a number
of different lines of communication. But they're all blocked, telegraph
and telephone. Our chief tried to get through via the Continent, just to
give us something to go on. But it was no go. Odd, isn't it?"

"Very," I agreed, as we turned; and I added, rather inanely: "One hears
a lot about East Anglian coast erosion."

Wardle yawned and grinned.

"Yes, to be sure. Perhaps East Anglia is cruising down Channel by now.
Or perhaps the Kaiser's landed an army corps and taken possession. That
Mediterranean business on Tuesday was pretty pronounced cheek, you know,
and, by