“You may tell the Prime Minister that if a meeting is held I shall preside. The announcements made in the papers and posters stand good.”
“Do you think that’s wise?” I asked.
“I think it’s right,” said Moyne.
It is a great pity that right things very seldom are wise. I have hardly ever met anything which could possibly be called prudent which was not also either mean or actually wrong.
Our next interruption was due to a newspaper reporter. He represented several papers, among others one in New York. He had the names of all of them printed on his card, but they did not impress Moyne. Our waiter, who was beginning to swell with a sense of his own importance, drove off that newspaper reporter. Three others, all of them representing papers of high standing, sent in their cards in quick succession. Moyne laid a sovereign on the table and told the waiter that he could have it as a tip on condition that no one got into the room while we were at dinner.
The waiter got the sovereign in the end; but he did not deserve it. While we were drinking our coffee a young man overwhelmed our waiter and forced his way into the room. There were two doors in our room, which is one of what is called a suite. As the young man entered by one, Moyne, leaving his coffee and his sovereign behind him, left by the other. He shut it with a slam and locked it.
“Lord Moyne, I presume?” said the young man.
“Lord Moyne,” I said, “has just left.”
“May I ask,” he said, “if I have the honour of addressing Mr. McNeice?”