“I said Haldane because I meant Haldane, and because Haldane is a synonym for colossal impudence—the impudence cf a police-court attorney defending a prostitute with whom he was on terms of disgusting intimacy. What a trick it was to leave the War Office, out of which he knew he would be turned, and then cajole his friend Asquith into giving him a peerage and the Seals, so that he might have his pension of five thousand pounds a year for the rest of his natural life! If that is to be condoned, all that I can say is that we must revise all our notions of political pettifogging. I forget at the moment how many retired Lord Chancellors there are who are pocketing their pension, but have done nothing to earn it.”
“What, do you call voting through thick and thin with your party nothing?”
“I don't. That is how, what we call a sovereign to-day is worth only nine shillings, and a man who got thirty shillings a week as a gardener only gets three pounds now: thirty shillings in 1913 was mere than three pounds to-day. And in England——”
“Hush, hush. Remember, 'My country right or wrong.'”
“I do remember. That is why I rave. When my country, right or wrong is painted out and 'my party, right or wrong' substituted, isn't it time one raved?”
“You didn't talk in that strain when you wrote a leading article every day for a newspaper.”
“I admit it; but—but—well, things hadn't come to a head in those old days.”
“You mean that they had not come into your head, mon vieux, if you will allow me to say so.”
I did allow her to say so—she had said so before asking my leave, which on the whole I admit is a very good way of saying things.
To be really frank, I confess that I was very glad that the dialogue ended here. I fancied the possibility of her having stored away in that wonderful group of pigeon holes which she calls her memory, a memorandum endorsed with the name of Campbell-Bannerman or a dossier labelled “Lansdowne.” For myself I recollect very well that a vote of the representatives of the People had declared that Campbell-Bannerman had left the country open to destruction by his failure to provide an adequate supply of cordite. In the days of poor Admiral Byng such negligence would have been quickly followed by an execution; but with the politician it was followed by a visit to Buckingham Palace and a decoration as a hero. When it was plain that Lord Lansdowne had made, and was still making, a muddle of the South African War, he was promoted to a more important post in the Government—namely, the Foreign Office. With such precedents culled from the past, why should any one be surprised to find the instigator of the Gallipoli gamble, whose responsibility was proved by a Special Commission of Inquiry, awarded the most important post next to that of the Prime Minister?