“Certainly not! Don’t you know that I never lend money? I wouldn’t do it if you were starving in the gutter.”
Then he wrote a cheque for £100, and said, “But I’ll give it to you, my dear fellow. Say no more about it.”
Now and again, when he saw one of his “young men” looking pale and run down, he would pack him off for a holiday in the South of France, with all his expenses paid. In later years he gave handsome pensions to many who had served him in the early days.
He had his court favorites, like the mediæval kings, generally one of the newcomers who had aroused his enthusiasm by some little “scoop,” or a brilliant bit of work. But he tired of them quickly, and it was a dangerous thing to occupy that position, because it was almost certain to mean a speedy fall.
For a little while I was one of his favorites. He used to chat with me in his room and say amusing, indiscreet things, about other members of the staff, or his numerous brothers.
I remember his looking up once from his desk where he sat in front of a bust of Napoleon, to whom he bore a physical resemblance, and upon whose character and methods with men he closely modeled himself.
“Gibbs,” he said, “whenever you see a man looking like a codfish walking about these passages, you’ll know my brother Cecil brought him in. Then he comes to me to hoik him out again!”
As temporary favorite, I was invited down to Sutton Court, a magnificent old mansion of Elizabethan days, in Surrey. It was in the early days of motoring, and I was taken down in a great car, and back in another, and felt like an emperor. Harmsworth was a delightful host, and kept open house during the week-ends, where one heard the latest newspaper “shop” under the high timbered roof and between the paneled walls, where the great ladies and gentlemen of England, in silks and brocades, had dined and danced by candlelight.
It was here, in the minstrels’ gallery, one afternoon, that Harmsworth asked me to tell him all about “syndicating,” according to my experience with the Tillotsons’ syndicate. I told him, and he became excited.