"I have no doubt about it whatever. If you'll come with me by and by, I'll show you such scenes in London as you may not see again if you lived the lives of your great-great-grandchildren. It's war and no war. When some fool gets up and cries that the Germans are sailing from Kiel you'll have pandemonium. There's sure to be one before the week is out. I open my papers every morning and expect to read the news. I tell you we are going to see something and see it quick. Let Benjamin understand that. I don't suppose you'll forget to point out to him the advantage of having such a brilliant man upon the spot. You won't be backward in coming forward, my boy."
Bertie assumed a meek look which served him very well upon these critical occasions when he interviewed a great personage for the purpose of taking away his character. A pleasant "I don't think" was his only comment upon the impertinence of the observation; but for the rest even his conventional imagination was impressed. John Faber was not the man to be wasting his time upon mere speculations. When he indulged in the luxury of a guess, a fortune usually lay at the back of it.
"Are you meaning to say that there is any real danger of this same invasion?" he asked rather timidly. "Benjamin would like to hear you about that; you're the first man he'd send to if he thought the game was on. Do you think it yourself, now?"
"I think nothing of the kind. The Germans are not madmen. They've got the sanest man in Europe at their head, and he is not likely to do stunts with the Gulf Stream holding the stakes. What the Britisher has got to fear is the consequence of war without its actuality. He's had that to fear any time these ten years. Now that wheat is cornered, and the shipping trade has fallen foul of the sailors, there is a flesh and blood bogey behind it. By gosh! he's frightened. I know it, and so do the newspapers. The Cabinet met last night and the King sent for Kitchener afterwards. They know there where the shoe pinches, and they see other bogeys. Let this frost hold, let hunger get a grip on the people over yonder, and there isn't an institution in Great Britain which will last a week. You can tell Benjamin as much, though there's no need to say I said it."
He had become unusually serious, pacing the room while he talked, and often looking out at the frozen river. Shrewd interviewer that Morris was and blessed with an excellent memory, nevertheless these things were big enough to be made a note of on the spot, and he took paper and pen for the purpose. That was the moment, however, when a servant came in to announce Mr. Rupert Trevelle, and immediately afterwards Faber fell to earnest talk with this famous diplomatist who was Sir Jules's right hand. There was nothing left for the journalist to do but to drink up the beer—a task he performed with alacrity.
To be sure, his curiosity was provoked not a little by the vivacity of the talk to which he listened, and when a little later on Faber apologised for taking his guest into the adjoining room to discuss some private business, the journalist prevailed against the man, and stooped without hesitation to the methods of Mary Jane. Bertie's ear fitted the keyhole very well, and he did not mind the draught overmuch. What he heard seemed to interest him very much. And the greater merit of it was that it had not been told him in confidence.
II
The three men left the hotel in a private car some hour and a half later, and told the driver to go past Aldgate to Commercial Road East. They all wore heavy fur coats and were put in good spirits by the vigour of the day and the stillness of the frosty air. London looked her best that morning. The whiteness of her roofs, the iron hardness of her roads, blue sky above and a kindly sunshine to make a rare spectacle of the gathered snow—never had she worn a fairer aspect. Even the Americans felt at home and needed but a blizzard to deceive them utterly.
The cheerful aspect of London chiefly impressed the imagination of the people in the West End at this time and they had got little beyond it at this stage. They talked in the clubs of the newspaper canards and pooh-poohed them. It was true that the rivers were frozen, but it was ridiculous to suppose that the severity of the frost would endure. As to the food-supply, what did it matter to men who could order a sole à la Victoria or a tournedo without causing the club steward to lift an eyelid? The frost was phenomenal, but it would in due course be followed by a thaw. Meanwhile, those d——d bakers were charging a shilling a loaf, and making a fortune by other people's necessities. It was a scandal with which any but an incompetent Radical government would have known how to deal.
Such a pleasant way of regarding things was universal through the West End, where business went on much as usual, and only the newspapers displayed the vulgarity of agitation. It is true that the cold caused a seeming bustle upon the pavements; but this was merely the cold, and the old gentlemen, who trotted vigorously where yesterday they walked, were not driven to such antics by the bakers, but by the bitterness of the weather. Not until the car had carried the three men past Aldgate Station to the junction of the Commercial Road, was there any evidence whatever of that menacing spectre the wise men had dreaded. Then it came upon them without warning—a procession of the social derelicts with a red flag for their banner.