"City," was the short answer.
"Things pretty bad?" I asked.
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be," he replied. "I'm fairly sorry for my own firm, but Heaven help anyone with much money out that he wants to get back quickly. They talk of closing the Stock Exchange and declaring a moratorium."
"The Club was a sad sight at lunch-time," I said. "Everybody talking about moving into a smaller house or giving up his car——"
Mayhew threw back his head and laughed.
"The one good thing I've heard to-day!" he cried. "Do you men know an objectionable fat youth named Webster? He came to the 'Wicked World' office this morning and tried to stick us with a long, tearful account of his escape from Germany. Apparently he had no end of a time getting away, and the Germans commandeered a brand new Rolls-Royce and kicked him over the frontier on foot."
"And I had half-made up my mind to take a cure at Nauheim," I said reflectively.
"You're well out of it," said Mayhew. "We had a curious story in the office to-day from Switzerland—rather a sinister business if it's true. A party of Americans—father, mother and two daughters—were motoring through Germany when the state of war was declared. They were held up, arrested and deprived of their car. A few hours later the parents were released and sent under escort to the frontier in a carriage with the blinds down. The girls have never been seen again."
It was the first of many similar stories, and I have no idea how much truth it contained. None of us yet appreciated the lengths to which 'civilized warfare' could be carried, but one of the things that change little throughout the centuries is the position of women in the midst of armed troops.