I see no solid reason why
Dramatic Art should ever die.
O. S.
UNAUTHENTIC IMPRESSIONS.
II.—Mr. Winston Churchill.
If it be urged that a few trifling inaccuracies have crept into the sketch which is here given of a great statesman's personality I can only say, "Humanum est errare," and "Homo sum: humani nihil alienum a me puto." These two Latin sentences, I find, invariably soothe all angry passions; you have only to try their effect the next time you stamp on the foot of a stout man when alighting from an Underground train.
Of all the present-day politicians, and indeed there are not a few, upon whose mantelpieces the bust of Napoleon Bonaparte is displayed, Mr. Winston Churchill is probably the most assiduous worshipper at the great Corsican's shrine. How often has he not entered his sanctum at the War Office, peering forward with that purposeful dominating look on his face, and discovered a few specks of dust upon his favourite effigy. With a quick characteristic motion of the thumb resembling a stab he rings the bell. A flunkey instantly appears. "Bust that dust," says the War Minister. And then, correcting himself instantly, with a genial smile, "I should say, Dust that bust."
But Napoleon's is not the only head that adorns Mr. Winston Churchill's room. On a bookshelf opposite is a model of his own head, such as one may sometimes see in the shop windows of hatters, and close beside is a small private hat-making plant, together with an adequate supply of the hair of the rabbit, the beaver, the vicuna and similar rodents, and a quantity of shellac. Few days pass in which the War Minister does not spend an hour or two at his charming hobby, for, contrary to the general opinion, he is far from satisfied with the headgear by which he is so well known, or even with the Sandringham hat of The Daily Mail, and lives always in hopes of modelling the ideal hat which is destined to immortalise him and be worn by others for centuries to come. The work of a great statesman lives frequently in the mindful brain of posterity, less frequently upon it.
Other mementos which adorn this remarkable room at the War Office are a porcelain pot containing a preserve of Blenheim oranges, a framed photograph of the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, a map of Mesopotamia with the outpost lines and sentry groups of the original Garden of Eden, marked by paper flags, and a number of lion-skin rugs of which the original occupants were stalked and killed by their owner on his famous African tour. In his more playful moments the War Minister has been known to clothe himself completely in one of these skins and growl ferociously from behind a palm at an unwelcome intruder.