"It's in a bad way," I told him. "All kinds of defects in the fabric, and there's a public fund to make it sound again. You ought to subscribe."
"It may be in disrepair," he replied, "but it isn't going to fall down just yet. I know; I went to see it this morning."
"But how do you know?" I asked. "You may guess; you can't know."
"I know," he said, "because I was told. A little bird told me, and there's no authority half so good. Do you remember a few years ago a terrific storm that blew down half the elms in Kensington Gardens?"
I remembered. I had reason; for the trunks and branches were all over the road and my omnibus from Church Street to Piccadilly Circus had to make wide detours.
"Well," Truscott continued, "someone wrote to the papers to say that two or three days before the storm all the rooks left the trees and did not return. They knew what was coming. Birds do know, you know, and that's why I feel no immediate anxiety about the Abbey."
"Well," he continued, "when I was there this morning I watched a sparrow popping in and out of a nest built in a niche in the stonework over the north door."
_From an Early-Victorian "Etiquette for Gentlemen_."--"A GENTLEMAN CANNOT BE TOO CAREFUL TO AVOID STEPPING ON A LADY'S DRESS WHEN ABOUT TO GET IN OR OUT OF A CARRIAGE."]
Really the news is very bad this morning. On the front page there are two Foreign crises and a Home one. On the next page there is one Grave Warning and two probable strikes. On every other page there is either a political murder or a new war. It is awful ...
Yet somehow I don't feel depressed. I rather feel like giggling. An empty smoker in the Cornish express--_empty_ except for me! Extraordinary! And all my luggage in the right van, labelled for Helston, and not for Hull or Harwich or Hastings. That porter was a splendid fellow, so respectful, so keen on his work--no Bolshevism about _him_. I gave him a shilling. I gave the taxi-man a shilling too. That guard is a pleasant fellow also; I shall give him two shillings, perhaps half-a-crown. Yet I see that the railways are seething with unrest.
I have just read _The Times'_ leader. Everything seems to be coming undone ... Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India. This Bolshevist business ... dreadful. The guard has got me a ticket for the Second Luncheon. A capital fellow. I gave him three shillings. Absurd. I have no more shillings now. I am overdrawn. There is a financial crisis. But that, of course, is general. I see that Mr. Iselbaum anticipates a general smash this winter. A terrible winter it is going to be ... no coal, no food ... We ought to be in by five, in time for a fat late tea ... Cornish cream ... jam. Gwen will be at the station, with the children, all in blue ... or pink perhaps. How jolly the country looks! Superficial, of course; the harvest's ruined; no wheat, no fruit. And unemployment will be very bad. And the more people there are unemployed the more people will strike ... Sounds funny, that; but true ... Hope they've given us the usual table in the coffee-room, that jolly window-table in the corner, where one can look across the bay to the cliffs and the corn-fields and the hills ... Only there's no corn, I suppose, this year ... And one has a good view of the rest of the room there ... can study the new arrivals at dinner, instead of having to wait till afterwards. Dinner is much the best time to study them; you can see at once how they eat. And it is so much easier to decide which is the sister and which the _fiancée_ of the young man when they are all stationary at a table. When you only see them rushing about passages in ones it takes days.