rtain cavalry officers against what
they supposed to be the Government's policy in Ulster. I am not, thank
God, called upon to pass a judgment on that very tangled business, or
to give any opinion about the rights or wrongs of either side. I do not
even profess to know the facts. Indeed I am inclined to doubt whether
there were any facts. In affairs conducted mainly by politicians there
seldom are facts. There are statements, explanations, pledges and
recriminations in great abundance; but facts are not to be discovered,
for the sufficient reason that they are not there. What happened or
seemed to happen was described as a plot, a mare's nest, an aristocratic
conspiracy, an assertion of principle, a mutiny, a declaration of
loyalty, and a newspaper scare, according to the taste of the person who
was speaking. The safest thing to call it, I think, is an incident.

I went down to the club at twelve o'clock, intending to smoke a cigar
and look at the picture papers before luncheon. I found Malcolmson
in the outer hall. His head was bent over the machine which reels off
strips of paper with the latest news printed on them. The machine was
ticking vigorously, and I knew by the tense attitude in which Malcolmson
was standing that something very important must have happened. My first
impulse was to slip quietly past and get away to the smoking room before
he saw me. I like Malcolmson, but he is tiresome, particularly tiresome
when there is important news. I crossed the hall cautiously, keeping an
eye on him, hoping that he would not look round till I was safe.

Malcolmson has reached that time of life at which a man's neck begins
to bulge over his collar at the back, forming a kind of roll of rather
hairy flesh, along which the starched linen marks a deep line from
ear to ear. I noticed as I passed that Malcolmson's neck was far more
swollen than usual and, that it was rapidly changing colour from its
ordinary brick red to a deep purple. The sight was so strange and
startling that I stopped for a minute to see what would happen next.
I have never heard of a man's neck bursting under pressure of strong
excitement, but Malcolmson's looked as if it must break out in some
way. While I was watching, the machine suddenly stopped ticking and
Malcolmson turned round. His face was nearly as purple as his neck. His
moustache, always bristly, looked as if it was composed of fine wires
charged with electricity. His eyes were blazing with