“That’s the worst of it; they are not on earth, they are gone. My boy always said it would be so; from the very first moment I heard it, I knew what had happened; often he has warned me. I still have his voice ringing in my ears.
“‘I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed: the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.’ (Luke xvii. 34.)
“I know only too well ‘that night’ was last night. I’ve often prayed for it without thinking, and so I daresay have you: ‘Thy kingdom come.’ It makes me so savage I don’t know what to do.”
Now, I was an atheist, and did not believe the Bible. For the last thirty years (I am past fifty) I had stuck to my opinions, and when I heard men talk religious trash I invariably objected.
But this seemed altogether different. I tell you, for a thousand pounds I couldn’t have said a word. I just hoped it would all turn out a dream, but the further we went, the more certain it became that we were all awake, and that by some unaccountable visitation of Providence a number of people had suddenly disappeared in the night.
The whole of society was unhinged; everybody had to do somebody’s else’s work. For instance, at the terminus, a porter had been put into Smith’s stall, as the usual man was missing. Cabs were not scarce, but some of those who drove them seemed unlicensed and new to their work. The shutters in some of the shops were up, and on getting to my bank I heard the keys had only just been found.
Everyone was silent, and afraid lest some great misfortune was coming. I noticed we all seemed to mistrust one another, and yet as each fresh clerk, turned up late, entered the counting-room, a low whisper went round. The chief cashier, as I expected, did not come. The newspapers no one cared to look at; there seemed a tacit opinion that they could tell us nothing.
Business was at a standstill. I saw that very soon. I hoped as the day wore on that it would revive, but it did not. The clerks went off without asking my permission, and I was left alone. I felt I hated them. I did not know what to do. I could not well leave, else they might say the bank had stopped payment, and yet I felt I could not stay there. Business seemed to have lost its interest, and money its value. I put up the shutters myself, and at once noticed what a change had come over the City while I had been at the bank. Then all were trying to fill the void places; now it seemed as if the attempt had failed.