“You’d have found the same thing in Rome and Nineveh,” said Bertrand. “Whenever a conspicuous social position is divorced from the means to keep it up . . . _That’s_ not a thing to notice. I told you to study the movement of men because one class is being squeezed out of existence. It may last my time, but it won’t last yours. It was never a big class, but in some ways it was the best. Now the sons have been killed; and the parents are crippled with taxation. Who’s coming to take their place, George? That’s the riddle for boys like you; and it’s to the newcomers we must appeal. . . . Is everything ready for our first number?” “As ready as it can be,” I answered, “without a principle, a policy or even a catchword.” When I went to Fetter Lane for the ceremony of ordering the machinists to print off, I was glad to see that my colleagues shewed no lack of enthusiasm. Headed by Bertrand, we marched to the Clock Tower Press and stood in a half-circle till he should give the sign. Martin Luther, printing his own bibles, could hardly have been more impressive; and, as we marched back to toast Bertrand in tepid champagne, the day seemed pregnant with fate. “All the same,” I said, as we dispersed, “you’ve none of you suggested a single reason why any one should want to buy this paper. People are simply not thinking of politics.” “They will, when they come out of their fool’s paradise,” answered Bertrand. With a prediction so vague I could not contend. Reconstruction, of which I had heard so much in the last years of the war, appeared to stop short when private lives and fortunes had been reconstructed. Employment was good; money was plentiful; trade was booming; and, after we had spent five million pounds a day without suffering for it, after we had found work for every one at his own price, it was not wonderful if the laws of political economy seemed to have been suspended. My brother-in-law Gervaise was but one of many whom I settled on the permanent wage-sheet of the country; during the next few days I was to help Sam Dainton into an engineering firm at Hartlepool and to be told that the directors could accommodate as many more of the same kind as I chose to send. It was too good to be true; it was too good to last; but, while it lasted, I felt we could expect little support for gloomy vaticinations that were being falsified under our eyes. CHAPTER FOUR AFTER THE DELUGE Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? TENNYSON: _The Lotus-Eaters_. 1