"What do you think of Lenin?"
"I think him a very remarkable man."
"Why?"
"Because he is expressing a new idea."
"Do you believe in Bolshevism?"
"I am not a politician?"
Others ask me to give them a message to France. A message to London. What have I to say to the people of Manchester? Will I meet Bernard Shaw? Will I meet H. G. Wells? Is it true that I am going to be knighted? How would I solve the unemployment problem?
In the midst of all this a rather mysterious gentleman pulls me to one side and tells me that he knew my father intimately and acted as agent for him in his music-hall engagements. Did I anticipate working? If so, he could get me an engagement. Would I give him the first opportunity? Anyway, he was very pleased to meet me. If I wanted a nice quiet rest I could come down to his place and spend a few days with my kind of people, the people I liked.
I am rescued by my secretaries, who insist that I go to my cabin and lie down. Anything the newspaper men have to ask they will answer for me. I am dragged away bewildered.
Is this what I came six thousand miles for? Is this rest? Where is that vacation that I pictured so vividly?