They went into a tea-shop and sat down. "Is the Guardian all right?" Henry asked.
"Oh, yes," said Leadenham wearily, "as right as anything is. Nobody in Fleet Street knows how long his job'll last. Half the men on the Daily Circle have had the sack. Some of our chaps have gone! Fleet Street's full of men looking for jobs. About fifty papers have smashed up since the thing began ... sporting papers mostly. It frightens you, this sort of thing!..."
He came away from Fleet Street as quickly as possible. The nervous, hectic state of the journalists made him feel nervous too.
"I'd better get among less jumpy people," he said to himself, and he hurried towards Charing Cross. And there he met Jimphy. He did not recognise him at first, for Jimphy was in khaki, and he would have passed on without seeing him, had Jimphy not caught hold of his arm and stopped him.
"Cutting a chap, damn you!" said Jimphy....
"Good Lord, I didn't know you!"
"Thought you didn't. Where you going?"
"Oh, nowhere. Just loafing about. Gilbert's down at Scotland Yard trying to enlist."
"Is he, begad? Everybody seems to be trying to enlist. He'd much better try to get a commission. I'm going home now. You come with me, Quinny. Hi, hi!..." He hailed a taxi-cab, and, without waiting to hear what Henry had to say, bundled him into it.
"Lord," he exclaimed, as he leant back in the cab, "it's years an' years an' years since I saw you. Well, what do you think of this for a bally war, eh? Millions of 'em ... all smackin' each other. I'm going out soon!" He leant out of the window and shouted at the driver, "Hi, you chap, hurry up, will you!