intimate that some people could play fiddles better than others who had a great name. Then the Secretary asserted that he was Conductor, whoever was playing first fiddle. It was rumoured that there was incompatibility of temper in exalted circles. “What odds to Hippokleides?” we said, we others.
There came a new Code,[19] that was to put elementary education on a really satisfactory basis. This was so common a phenomenon that we hardly turned our heads to look at it: but to our amazement it was followed by an invitation to attend at the Foreign Office one March day, that we might hear the V.P.’s opinions on his new baby, and on education generally. We assembled from the Solway to the Channel, from the Irish Sea to the German Ocean. Whitehall lay down with South Kensington, and the great Hall of the Foreign Office had a novel congregation. There for the first and only time I saw a V.P. His views on education were pronounced “very crude,” “amateurish,” and so on; but it was a holiday, and the country paid our expenses: I think my bill came to about £4. I lunched with a Treasury clerk, who suggested that the V.P. had not spent all his “Vote,” and wanted to knock down the balance, instead of refunding it to the Treasury. But it is the way of the Treasury to take low views of human motives.
The Lord President and the Vice-President have passed away. It may be that the dual control was unworkable; but there was something to be said for it. The V.P. was not a first-class Minister; the President was not a first-class educationalist. Therefore the V.P. put on the steam, and the other put on the brake. We are now better able to appreciate the value of the arrangement.
There came a change after an Act of 1899. The Education Department of the Privy Council cut the cable, became independent, and took the title of “Board of Education.” My Lords vanished, and the Lord President and Vice-President were transformed into a President and a Parliamentary Secretary. The former may be chosen from either House, but the first to hold office was a noble lord who would have fitly adorned the post of Lord President of the Council. He was followed by a philosophic commoner; and he again by other commoners, whom their friends applauded, and their enemies severely censured for their activity. It may be suggested that a more experienced statesman in the Upper House might have exercised a wholesome restraining influence.
On a former page the Lord President was disrespectfully compared with the tall footman. The permanent secretary occupies the more exalted position of head waiter. It is to the head waiter that the experienced traveller pays court. He controls the loaves and fishes, and without him one may hang on and starve while others wax fat. He arranges the tables, and gives to his chosen friends corner seats by the fire, or choice spots in the bow window commanding a rich prospect; but to the ungodly a draughty place near the door. As the older visitors drop off, it is his to move up those who find favour in his eyes, and to let the runagates continue in scarceness. If he smiles, the understrappers scowl in vain: a word to the great man will do all that is wanted. The directors, the manager who appointed him, pretend to superior dignity, and their emoluments are on a more generous scale: but in their secret hearts they admit that the key to the success of the establishment is in the hands of the maître d’hôtel.
These valuable, if tedious, reflections come to me too late. I never paid court to the great man: I never went near him, unless I wanted something very much. It was sufficient for me to cultivate the goodwill of the waiter at my table, though I was well aware that he would endure but for a time. As soon as I had got to know Rosencrantz he was moved on, and I had to begin again with Guildenstern. I sat in a dark corner and carefully avoided the master eye. But I was very well treated.
Presidents, V.P.’s, secretaries, and all the host that called themselves “My Lords” trouble me no more. I can sit like Amyas Leigh on Lundy and dream of my old friends and foes:
“And I saw him sitting in his cabin like a valiant gentleman of Spain, and his officers were sitting round him with their swords upon the table at the wine. And the prawns and the crayfish, and the rockling they swam in and out above their heads....”
Shadowy presidents and vice-presidents; sturdy Sir Francis with his pleasant smile and rich Doric accent; the grim and cautious head of Cumin; sharp-tongued A., rough-tongued B., double-tongued C., honey-tongued D.
“She lies in fifteen fathoms at the edge of the rocks, upon the sand, and her men are lying all around her, asleep until the Judgment Day.”