5 MAY 1939, Page 14

When I reached my club the page-boy, with trained dex-

terity, was padding and smoothing with the aid of a quite ordinary clothes-brush the first bulletins upon the green baize, studded as a bagatelle-board with sharp pins. In his childish writing he would scribble 3, 4, 5, 6 in blue pencil upon the successive sheets which he affixed. A small, but wholly orderly, crowd had gathered around the notice-board as around the machine which ministered to its information- service. " 71g, jig, jig " went the machine, purring and buz- zing into a more definite statement. " The return of the Saar region has done away with all territorial problems as between Germany and France." Clearly it was useless to acquire information in this intermittent manner. I re- turned to my chambers and to the truly arduous task of trying to decipher what Mr. James Joyce really meant by his " Fimiegan's Wake." Discouraged by my failure to cope with this task, I took the evening train down to Kent. By that time the posters were flaming with diverse inter- pretations of the Reichstag speech. I bought my news- papers and settled down to read them in the train.

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