As they went out and recrossed the bridge, Charlie would not release his cousin; he dragged him towards the station and plied him still.
"It really is a big thing," he pleaded.
"Good God!" said Bozzy, losing his temper at or about that point in Victoria Street where the proud embassy of Cape Colony lifts its flag in the heart of the Empire. "Don't pester me, I'm not the Prime Minister!"
"Very well," said Charlie quietly, "I'll go and see him."
"Oh, do that by all means," said Bozzy, enormously relieved, "but don't get to Downing Street before three; he refuses everything steadily from after lunch till three o'clock. Then he takes that stuff Helmsley ordered him, and a few minutes afterwards he does everything for everybody; at least that's the only way I account for the two last appointments."
It was a cynical and a stupid thing to say of a man as hardworking and as capable as the young Prime Minister of England, who had led the National Party to success less than two years before; and who, moreover, was known to be suffering from an affection of the left lung; but there was this much truth in it, that all men have their hours: no more.
Charlie Fitzgerald brought home news that evening which lifted Mr. Clutterbuck's heart. He would not commit himself, but he told him very plainly that he had seen his cousin, that his cousin could not speak for the Government (and, after all, that was common-sense!), but that he, Charlie, was to see the Prime Minister the next day.
The truth looks very different to different men, and all external verities must, alas, be stated in mere human terms; this plain and just and honest phrase "and I'm to see the Prime Minister to-morrow," sank into Mr. Clutterbuck's mind with a very different effect from that which it could produce upon the experienced and travelled intellect of the man who spoke it.
His secretary was to see the Prime Minister the next day! It seemed more to Mr. Clutterbuck than it does to the delicately nurtured youth of England when they hear in the morning of their lives that they are to see the elephant at the Zoo. It had a thousand ritual connotations: it was the power, the kingdom and the glory. He felt it odd to be in the same room with his secretary.
How could that secretary, who had called the present Prime Minister "Uncle Dunk" since he could first lisp a word, know of what it was that passed in the new member's heart?