"Then there comes the personal question. There must be little paragraphs about myself constantly in the papers. For instance, as I am leaving this place I slip in getting into my car, and have to be led back into the house. There will be photographs of the policeman who rushes up, the look of solicitude on his face. There will also be photographs of the policeman's wife and the policeman's daughter—possibly a son or nephew serving at the front. My family will be photographed at the windows, looking out anxiously to see what has happened. There can also be a few personal particulars about my chauffeur.
"Later I shall be photographed limping out of the house and being helped into the car by three secretaries, four policemen and my chauffeur. In the press there will be comments upon my stoicism. How, in spite of being in obvious pain, I put the affairs of the Empire before those of my own person. Later, possibly there may be an attempt to abduct my daughter. Another time there can be an attempt on my life."
"On your life, sir?"
"Oh, yes, yes," he continued airily. "These things can always be arranged. You see, I can be walking in some lonely place, and you can come up and—well, knock me down."
"Me!" gasped Angell Herald in ungrammatical horror.
"Exactly," he replied, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world for a publicity-agent to knock down a Prime Minister. "A great sensation would be created, and it would extend to the ends of the earth. We could suggest that the Kaiser was deeply involved in the plot.
"Again, I can slip on a banana skin, and run a shirt Bill through the House providing that everyone who eats bananas must carry about the skins until he gets home, where they must be put in the dust-bin. This would gain for me the vote of every human being who has ever slipped on a banana skin.
"Finally we come to the epigrammatic phrases. There is one I have in mind that should create a sensation. It is: 'One of these days you'll see what you won't wait for.' I got it from one of the furniture men who assisted when I moved into No. 110; a droll fellow, an exceedingly droll fellow. His name was—let me see, yes, Joseph Bindle. I thought of asking him to join my Ministry, but I remembered the prejudice that one has to fight in this country in all matters affecting innovation. Another phrase that may be useful to us is: 'All is not cult that kulturs.'
"Oh! by the way, couldn't we run 'The Twenty-three Gentlemen who are always too late' on the lines of 'Ten Little Nigger Boys?' I think there's something in that.
"But we must first have some refreshment. Ah! here it is."