By the way, whenever we change houses a special pantechnicon has to be engaged to take all the complimentary verses that have from time to time been addressed to me. Must be a sort of something about me somehow, don’t you think?
I cannot pretend that I was on the same terms of intimate friendship with Mr. Lloyd George. I spoke to him only once.
It was when we were in Downing Street. There was quite a crowd of us there, and it had been an evening of exalted and roseate patriotism. I gazed up at the window of No. 10 and said, as loudly as I could:
“Lloyd George! Lloyd George!”
Most of the others in the crowd said the same thing with equal force. Then an uneducated policeman came up to me and asked me to pass along, please, adding that Mr. Lloyd George was not in London. So, simply replying “All right, face,” I passalongpleased.
However, in spite of all that bound me so closely to the great political world, I could not help feeling the claims of literature. I am sensitive to every claim. It is the claim of history, for example, that compels me to write my autobiography. I seem to see all around me a thousand human arts and activities crying for my help and interest. They seem to say “Marge, Marge, more Marge!” in the words that Goethe himself might have used. And whenever I hear the call I have to give myself.
I doubt if any girl ever gave herself away quite as much as I have done.
One day in November I met Chummie Popbright in the neighbourhood of Cambridge Circus. He was a man with very little joie de vivre, ventre à terre, or esprit de corps. He had fair hair and no manners, and was very, very fond of me. He held a position in the Post Office, and was, in fact, emptying a pillar-box when I met him. I record the conversation.