I found London reporters at my inn, men I half knew.

They expressed mitigated delight at the view of me, and over a lunch-table let me know what "one said"-- what one said of the outside of events I knew too well internally.

They most of them had the air of my aunt's solicitor when he had said, "Even I did not realise...." their positions saving them the necessity of concealing surprise.

"One can't know _everything_." They fumbled amusingly about the causes, differed with one another, but were surprisingly unanimous as to effects, as to the panic and the call for purification.

It was rather extraordinary, too, how large de Mersch loomed on the horizon over here.