If the closely drawn blinds of the many windows of Westminster Buildings could have been raised that night and early morning, the place would have seemed a very hive of industry.

Twenty men were hard at work in twenty different rooms.

Some went about their labours doubtfully, some almost timorously, some with jubilation, one or two with real regret.
Under their fingers grew the more amplified mandates which, following upon the bombshell of the already prepared telegrams, were within a few hours to paralyse industrial England, to keep her ships idle in the docks, her trains motionless upon the rails, her mines silent, her forges cold, her great factories empty.

Even the least imaginative felt the thrill, the awe of the thing he was doing.

On paper, in the brain, it seemed so wonderful, so logical, so certain of the desired result.
And now there were other thoughts forcing their way to the front.