"No ... no, of course not!"

"I think I'll go and suggest that to the proprietor. I've just been up
to Manchester to see how things are going on there. Bit excited, of
course. Nobody seems to know what to do, so they just sit down and
cancel everything. Silly, I call it. I went to my office to get my
letters, and every blessed one was cancelling an order. I mean to say,
that's no way to go on ... losing their heads like that. And you know
they'll need my stuff later on ... if we go in!"

"Your stuff?" Henry said.

"Yes. I deal in black!..."

"Christ!" said Gilbert, getting up and walking away.

"Your friend seems a bit upset, doesn't he?" Mr. Perkins murmured to
Henry.

4

They went into Holyhead, and wandered aimlessly about the station.
Marvellously, men in uniform appeared everywhere. The reservists, naval
and military, had been called up, and while Gilbert and Henry stood in
the station, a large number of them went away, leaving tearful, puzzled
women on the platform. That morning the boots at the hotel had been
called up to join his Territorial regiment. He had been carrying a trunk
on his back, when the call came to him, and, chuckling, he dropped the
trunk, and skipped off to get ready. "I'm wanted," he said ... and then
he went off.

And still people went about, bemused and frightened, demanding what it
was about....

"Well have to go in," some one said in the station. "I can't see how we
can stay out!..."

"I can't see that at all," his neighbour replied. "We've got nothing to
do with it!"

"If the Germans won't leave the Belgians alone!..."

Perkins interrupted again. "We've got a Belgian cook in our hotel," he
said. "It ... it sort of brings it all home to you, that!"

There were rumours that the working-people were resolute against the
war....

"And so are the employers," said Perkins. "I can tell you that. I've not
met anybody yet who wants a war!"

And as the rumours flew about, they grew. One could see a rumour begin
and swell and change and increase.

"I tell you what," said Perkins. "These Germans have been damn well
asking for it, and I hope they'll damn well get it. I know a few Germans
... Manchester's full of 'em ... and I don't like 'em. As a nation, I
don't like 'em. They ... they get on my nerves, that's what they do!"

There was talk about German organisation, German efficiency, German
militarism....

"They don't think anything of a civilian in Germany. The soldier's