“The Great Push at last!... In France as well, no doubt.... Every front.... Yes, the Great Push. I always said it would begin in May.”
At one table the manager lingered for some little time. He was talking with some animation to three journalists, correspondents of French newspapers. Two of them were busy writing in note-books. It appeared that the manager had no lack of news to impart: he spread out his plump hands, lifted his shoulders, and wrinkled his brows. And then he looked furtively towards us, and whispered something behind his hand. The journalists also looked, half rose, thought a second time, and sat down again.
“Damned funny, isn’t it?” said Porritt.
“I’m afraid you’re rather in for it,” I remarked.
“Oh, I’ll soon dispose of them.”
Only one table went on smoothly and systematically with its eating. Seated at it were two Fleet Street men, who had just come to Salonika to conduct The Balkan News. They had listened to the manager, but had remained unmoved. But, presently, one of them took a slip of paper from his pocket, wrote a few words, and sent it across to us by a waiter.
Porritt unrolled the slip. On it was written: “Is there anything in it?” He hesitated a moment, then wrote underneath: “Damfino.” “Which,” said he to me, “being interpreted, means: ‘I’m damned if I know.’” And that is all the English journalists got; as a matter of fact, it was all they wanted, and they sat back in their chairs, and watched the rumour grow.
Extraordinary our human love of the sensational! Extraordinary our inability to pass on a piece of news without adding to it! Extraordinary the credulity we give to impossible stories we desire to be true!
“Let’s have our coffee and liqueurs down at Floca’s,” suggested Porritt. “It’ll be rather jolly to see to what fantastic shapes my Yarn has grown down there.”
Floca’s, of course, is just underneath the Roma, but though only a floor and a ceiling divide them, they are as different in mental atmosphere as the gilt-mirrored lounge of the Café Royal, and the dining-room at Morley’s Hotel.