me out of the sea unheralded, an
evil born with all its teeth.

After the crash of a bursting shell every one who can picks himself up,
brushes the dirt off his uniform, and tries to make a joke of it. Then
some one whips a handkerchief round his hand--a splinter has torn
it--and another finds warm streaks running down his forehead. Then a
man, overlooked till now and past help, groans to the death. Everybody
perceives with a start that this is no time for laughter, and the dead
and wounded are attended to.

Even so at the Overseas Club when the men got out of office. The brokers
had told them the news. In filed the English, and Americans, and
Germans, and French, and 'Here's a pretty mess!' they said one and all.
Many of them were hit, but, like good men, they did not say how
severely.

'Ah!' said a little P. and O. official, wagging his head sagaciously (he
had lost a thousand dollars since noon), 'it's all right _now_. They're
trying to make the best of it. In three or four days we shall hear more
about it. I meant to draw my money just before I went down coast,
but----' Curiously enough, it was the same story throughout the Club.
Everybody had intended to withdraw, and nearly everybody had--not done
so. The manager of a bank which had _not_ failed was explaining how, in
his opinion, the crash had come about. This was also very human. It
helped none. Entered a lean American, throwing back his waterproof all
dripping with the rain; his face was calm and peaceful. 'Boy, whisky and
soda,' he said.

'How much haf you losd?' said a Teuton bluntly. 'Eight-fifty,' replied
the son of George Washington sweetly. 'Don't see how that prevents me
having a drink. My glass, sirr.' He continued an interrupted whistling
of 'I owe ten dollars to O'Grady' (which he very probably did), and his
countenance departed not from its serenity. If there is anything that
one loves an American for it is the way he stands certain kinds of
punishment. An Englishman and a heavy loser was being chaffed by a
Scotchman whose account at the Japan end of the line had been a trifle
overdrawn. True, he would lose in England, but the thought of the few
dollars saved here cheered him.

More men entered, sat down by tables, stood in groups, or remained
apart by themselves, thinking with knit brows. One must think quickly
when one's bills are falling due. The murmur of voices thickened, and
there was no rumbling in the skittle alley to interrupt it. Ever