all accounts, the result of direct orders from Potsdam. Only the
Kaiser's bluff, I suppose, but I'm told it's taken most of the Channel
Fleet down into Spanish waters."

I smiled at the activity of Wardle's journalistic imagination, and
thought of the music-hall crowd.

"Ah, well," I said, "'They'll never go for England, because England's
got the dibs'!"

"What ho!" remarked Wardle, with another yawn. And this time he was
really off.

And so I walked home alone to my lodgings, and climbed into bed,
thinking vaguely of Constance Grey, and what she would have thought of
my night's work; this, as the long, palely glinting arms of the Sabbath
dawn thrust aside the mantle of summer night from Bloomsbury.

XIII

THE DEMONSTRATION IN HYDE PARK

Winds of the World give answer! They are whimpering to and fro--
And what should they know of England who only England know?--
The poor little street-bred people that vapour and fume and brag,
They are lifting their heads in the stillness to yelp at the
English flag.

RUDYARD KIPLING.

As was usually the case on the day following one of Beatrice's "fluffy"
evenings, I descended to my never very tempting lodging-house breakfast
on that Sunday morning feeling the reverse of cheerful, and much
inclined to take the gloomiest view of everything life had to offer me.

Sunday was generally a melancholy day for me. It was my only day out of
Fleet Street, and, though I had long since taken such steps as I thought
I could afford toward transforming my bedroom into a sitting-room, there
was nothing very comfortable or homelike about it. I had dropped the
habit of churchgoing after the first few months of my London life,
without any particular thought or intention, but rather, I think, as one
kind of reflex action--a subconscious reflection of the views and habits
of those among whom I lived and worked.

Hearing a newsboy crying a "special" edition of some paper, I threw up
the window and bought a copy, across the area railings. It was the paper
for which Wardle worked. I found in it no particular justification for
any special issue, and, as a fact, the probability is the appearance of
this edition was merely a device to increase circulation, suggested
mainly by the fact that the ordinary issue had been delayed by the East
Anglian telegraphic breakdown. Regarding this, I found the following
item of ed