MEN I HAVE PAINTED
explosion confirmed my suspicions; and a remarkable change in Mr. Shorter's complexion and expression made it evident that he also realized the situation. A very pronounced increase in the beat of my heart, and the colour, or the lack of it, of a tall man opposite, who had risen, as most of us were doing, caused me to search for the signs of an emotion of fright: but all that I found was that of an intense feeling of curiosity to see the airship, a curiosity that I had never known before, and which became so powerful, that in the struggle to get up on the Publisher's back—he had been quicker to reach the window than I—I almost precipitated both of us into Gough Square.
"Oh!" we all groaned in varying notes of surprise, alarm, and execration, as the thing passed immediately over us, sailing eastward. It was very high, and soon disappeared, although a little man beside me persisted in saying he could still see it; and when I suggested that he only saw the Pleiades through the thin veil of smoke, he resentfully remarked that it was the Zeppelin, because he had often seen airships manœuvring at night over Lake Constance. The police had now become so insistent, that we reluctantly left the window, and retook our seats at table to discuss "the cynicism of Dr. Johnson."
Birrell, I think, led off, and thirteen others took part in the debate. Half an hour after the raid a visitor would not have discovered in the calm of our procedure that anything unusual had happened. The porch of the Lyceum Theatre had been blown up, a drinking house opposite partly destroyed, and a number of people killed. The Morning Post building was on fire, and all the windows in that part of Fleet Street and the Strand blown out. When we left the Johnson House, at eleven o'clock, I
164
