"Are you Flynn?" he asked, and when I answered in the affirmative he shook hands with me. "My name is Barwell," he continued. "I am a journalist like yourself. What the devil caused you to come here?"
I had no excuses to offer.
"You might have stayed where you were," said Barwell. "You'll find that a navvies' office is much better than a newspaper office. Have you had lunch?"
"No," I answered. It was now nearly one o'clock, but I had not had breakfast yet. I had never been inside a restaurant in my life, and the daintily-dressed waitresses and top-hatted feeders deterred me from entering that morning. I might have done something unbecoming and stupid, and in a strange place I am sensitive and shy.
"Come along then. We'll go out together and feed."
We entered a restaurant in the Strand, and my friend ordered lunch for two. During the course of the meal I suffered intense mental agony. The fork was a problem, the serviette a mystery, and I felt certain that everybody in the place was looking at me.
"The news-editor has asked me to write an account of a fire in Holborn," I said to Barwell when we had eaten, "Do you know where Holborn is?"
"The whole account of the fire is given in the evening papers," said Barwell. "Therefore you do not require to go near the place."
"You mean——"
"Exactly what you are going to say," said the young man looking at the copy of the evening paper which he had bought at the door when entering. "You can write your story now and get the facts from this. Have you a pencil and notebook?"