"I beg your pardon, sir. It is a slang term for food and provisions."
"So grub is food, is it? How very interesting!" said the highly distinguished personage.
The sequel to our expedition was of course Lord Kitchener's masterly campaign. After the capture of Omdurman, and the blowing up of the Mahdi's tomb, it was publicly stated that a certain officer was bringing home the skull of the holy man, intending to make it into an inkpot. The House of Commons (of which I was then a member) having nothing better to do, discussed the matter on 5th June, 1899. Lord Kitchener sat in the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery. Mr. John Morley (now Lord Morley) protested against the desecration of the tomb of the Mahdi. I replied to Mr. Morley, protesting against his assumption of authority in the matter. I said:
"Now I wish to take, most respectfully, issue with the right honourable the Member for Montrose upon this point. I say this with great respect and with great earnestness that so far as I can judge from the right honourable gentleman's writings and by his teachings, he is no judge of religious fanaticism whatever. I say this with respect because, as I understand what he has written, he does not regard religious fanaticism as anything that can ever be powerful, because he says himself that he does not understand the question at all. That being so, I cannot accept the right honourable gentleman as a guide as to what should be done to check religious fanaticism.... The right honourable the Member for Montrose does not believe in the power of religious fanaticism...."
Mr. Morley: "The Noble Lord cannot have read my writings, or else he would have seen that fanaticism was one of the things I have written most about" (Hansard 5th June, 1899).
A member said to me in the lobby afterwards: "You really ought not to say these things. Why do you make these assertions?"
"Because," I said, "I have read Mr. Morley's works."
"You know very well," said my friend, "that you have never read any of his books."
"I beg your pardon," I replied. "I never go to sleep without reading one of Mr. Morley's books, and I never read one of Mr. Morley's books without going to sleep."