r _The Telegraph_ for
Orville Lodge, and so on through the crowd of applicants until all are
satisfied. This is the great event of our day. At the grocery stores on
the opposite side of the road, news telegrams are shown on a board, and
with these we eke out the knowledge of our fluctuating fate. Close by,
too, is posted up a proclamation by the officer commanding the troops in
the Island. He bids us not to walk too near a fort or to convey to any
casual person such knowledge as we may have gained about the movements
of troops, and we are commanded "to at once report" anything suspicious.
I am sure the gallant officer will display as much vigour in the
battering of his country's foes as he has shown in the splitting of the
KING'S infinitives. Going for my newspaper this morning I saw at a
distance an elderly gentleman of a serious aspect revolving steadily
round and round a tall iron post. It was not until I came closer that I
realised the meaning of his strange gyrations. The proclamation had been
inconsiderately pasted round the post and he was endeavouring to read
it.

On Thursday last, nearly a week before the actual proclamation of war,
the wildest rumours were afloat here. A motherly lady assured me with a
smile that the German fleet might be expected at any moment. "The
British fleet," she told me, "has been overwhelmed and sunk in the North
Sea. The Germans have determined to capture the Isle of Wight, so we are
none of us safe." I asked her where she had heard this dreadful news.
"Oh, it's all over the village." Thereupon she moved calmly into a
bathing cabin and had a patriotic dip. In another quarter I was told
that the Island could not fail to be cut off, and awful things were
prophesied as to what would happen to us unless we made our way to the
mainland with the utmost promptitude. The supply of eggs was to run
short; meat was to go up to famine prices or be reserved entirely for
the soldiery, our intrepid defenders; bread was to become a luxury
obtainable only by millionaires. All this was reported on the authority
of a man who had it from another man who had it from a banker who was in
close touch with the War Office in London. So far what is true is that
steamers no longer come to Totland Bay, and anyone who wants to visit us
here can get no nearer by boat than Yarmouth--not, of course, the home
of the bloater, but our own little island Yarmouth, round the corner. In
the meantime a good deal of patrioti