CHAPTER XXIX
DIAZ
DOES the hand lose its cunning? I had practically given up all forms of rapid journalism, when, on November 24th, 1910, I was suffering from a cold (which had, by the way, prevented my seeing my own tableaux got up for a charity at the Court Theatre). The telephone buzzed and fumed.
“Will you speak to the editor of the Daily Mail, please, ma’am, at once?” asked the parlourmaid. Down I went to the ’phone in my dressing-gown.
“There is a report that Diaz is assassinated.”
“Don’t believe it,” I replied.
“But the telegram is lying before me,” he continued.
“Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I know Diaz. I know his home, and I know the Mexican people.”
“Would I write fourteen hundred words at once?”