upposing that he took the
quickest route to Belfast, did not leave Euston till 8 or 9 o'clock at
night; but he felt that he must be up and doing at once. He fussed out
of the club, and for some time I saw no more of him.

I waited until the hall porter had cut up the slips of paper which fell
from the clicking machine and pinned the bits to the notice boards. Then
I read the news for myself. These machines are singularly unintelligent.
They mix up the items of news in a very irritating way. Sometimes a
sheet begins with the assassination of a foreign prime minister, breaks
off suddenly to announce the name of a winning horse, goes back to the
prime minister, starts a divorce case abruptly and then gives a few
Stock Exchange quotations. I hate news which comes to me in this
disjointed way, and never attempt to learn anything from the machine
until the hall porter has edited the sheets. He cuts them up, gets all
the racing news on one board, the Stock Exchange and the Divorce
Court on another and makes a continuous narrative of political news,
assassinations, picturesque shipwrecks and such matters on the largest
and most prominent of the notice boards.

I found when I did read that Malcolmson had built up a lofty structure
on a very small foundation. Something had evidently happened among
the soldiers stationed at the Curragh Camp; but the first account
telegraphed over from Ireland left me in grave doubt. It was a question
whether the men had actually been told to shoot Malcolmson and refused
to obey orders; or had been asked, politely, if they would like to shoot
Malcolmson and said they would rather not. The one thing which emerged
with any sort of clearness was that Malcolmson would not be shot. This
made my mind easy. I went into the dining-room and had some luncheon.

Early in the afternoon I collected six evening papers, three belonging
to each side. I found the Unionist writers unanimous on two points. The
Army had saved the Empire and the Government would be obliged to resign.
The Liberal scribes took another view of the situation. According to
them the Army had been seduced from its loyalty by the intrigues of
fascinating and fashionable Delilahs, but the will of the people must,
nevertheless, prevail. Newspaper writers on the Liberal side are far
more intelligent than their opponents. It was a stupid thing, in the
early part of 1914, to talk about saving the Empire. No one at that
time cared anything about t