The new plague had reached England. It was then that the panic began.
VII—PANIC
1
Gurney, when he left his office on that Saturday, was influenced by the general depression. He went to lunch at the “White Vine,” in the Haymarket, quite determined to keep himself in hand, to argue himself out of his low spirits.
He made a beginning at once.
“Every one seems to have a fit of the blues. Ernst,” he remarked to the waiter with a factitious cheerfulness.
Ernst, less polite than usual, shrugged his shoulders. “There is enough cause already,” he said.
“Have you had bad news from Germany?” asked Gurney, feeling that he had probably been rather brutal.