eager to be "in the middle of things," willing to go out on any terms so
long as they could see "a bit of fun," ready to take all risks. Special
correspondents, press photographers, the youngest reporters on the
staff, sub-editors emerging from little dark rooms with a new
excitement in eyes that had grown tired with proof correcting, passed
each other on the stairs and asked for their Chance. It was a chance
of seeing the greatest drama in life with real properties, real corpses,
real blood, real horrors with a devilish thrill in them. It was not to be
missed by any self-respecting journalist to whom all life is a stage
play which he describes and criticises from a free seat in the front of
the house.

Yet in those newspaper offices in Fleet Street there was no real
certainty. Even the foreign editors who are supposed to have an
inside knowledge of international politics were not definite in their
assertions. Interminable discussions took place over their maps and
cablegrams. "War is certain." "There will be no war as far as England
is concerned." "Sir Edward Grey will arrange an international
conference." "Germany is bluffing. She will climb down at the
eleventh hour. How can she risk a war with France, Russia, and
England?" "England will stand out." "But our honour? What about our
understanding with France?"

There was a profound ignorance at the back of all these opinions,
assertions, discussions. Fleet Street, in spite of the dogmatism of its
leading articles, did not know the truth and had never searched for it
with a sincerity which would lead now to a certain conviction. All its
thousands of articles on the subject of our relations with Germany
had been but a clash of individual opinions coloured by the traditional
policy of each paper, by the prejudice of the writers and by the