"When you're my age ..." he began. "Bah, you never will be, your lot dies off like so many flies. Another five years will see you out, and on my soul I think you're to be envied. I've lived long enough to see everything I cared for shattered. We've got war at our doors, and, before it's been going on six weeks, mark my words! personal liberty will be at an end, you'll be under a military despotism, the freedom of the Press.... By the way, I sent some neutrality lunatics to see you on Sunday."
"I'm afraid I didn't give them much satisfaction," I said. "Look here, Bertrand, about this paper——"
"What paper?"
"'Peace.'"
"There's no such paper. Don't stare, George; you look as if you were only half awake. 'Peace,' indeed ...! Why, my God! I've at least outgrown that phase. I telephoned to M'Clellan to bring me the electros for the headings and I went through the damned mocking things with a hammer!" He paused to breathe heavily, with one hand pressed to his side. "I think I'd rather be alone for the present, old boy," he went on, with sudden gentleness. "You go off and amuse yourself at the Club, you're too young to be in the same room as my thoughts. If you've got your securities pass-book, you might do worse than jot down what you think your income's likely to be the next few years. Don't be too optimistic about it, you can run a pencil through three-quarters of your investments abroad. I've given everybody notice here, to be on the safe side; and you'll be well advised to overhaul your expenditure."
I was half-way through my dressing when Mayhew telephoned to invite me to dinner at the Penmen's Club. He had lived night and day at the "Wicked World" office since leaving Chepstow, quarrelling, arguing and bribing to get leave to go abroad.
"And now I'm at a loose end," he told me, as we stood in the hall waiting for O'Rane and Loring. "The Press Combine is going to work all it knows to get Kitchener put into the War Office, and from what I remember of Omdurman and South Africa, war correspondents aren't at a premium with him. It's so hard to get out of this damned country at present, or I should be half-way to St. Petersburg by now."
I told him of my uncle's decision to discontinue "Peace," and he whistled regretfully.
"Poor old Fleet Street!" he exclaimed. "There's a bad time coming for the parasites. The 'Wicked World' has sacked half its men, including me, and the chief proposes to write the paper himself."
"That's a bit stiff," I said.