40
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
"I know," I said, "Mr. Green asked me to look him up,
too."
"Very intelligent fellow," Heighway commented. "Knows
what he is doing."
"What is he doing in London?" I asked.
"Organizing British ex-servicemen for the Palestine show.
He's got five hundred of them, all trained men, and he's got
officers to train them further."
"Do you intend to press the Arab viewpoint in World's
Press News?"
"Well, we're supposed to be neutral," Heighway answered. "But if there's a newsbreak we'll see what we can do."
He laughed toothily, and I left him.
In my hotel room my last night in London, I packed for the
next leg of my journey to Cairo. As Charles L. Morey I had
met those I had wanted to meet and had been given an instructive introduction to what I might expect in the Middle
East. I sent to New York large quantities of hate-literature for
my files; and I had also sent a thick envelope of notes. All this
I knew, however, did not reflect the real, the democratic England.
For as a people, I had found the average Britisher decent,
law-abiding and even-tempered. I had begun to understand
why the British always pull through; and I had begun to appreciate their moral strength, their emotional maturity which,
it seemed to me, helped explain why they were able to gravitate into the orbit of Socialism without a violent revolution.
The Burgesses, the Cannings, and the Greens were not typical
of the British. Nothing, I felt, so truly typified the British
spirit as did Hyde Park, the very Hyde Park I could look down
upon from my room in the Cumberland.
One unforgettable Sunday night, as a cold drizzle fell, I had
strolled by when a lean, hungry-looking man in cap and
Bowery-like overcoat began to lead a group in old-fashioned
hymns. There were many young people and a sprinkling of