Edmund. Everyone asks me to help. It is my destiny. I am the Muses' amicus curiæ.
Mrs. A. Oh, blow Latin! (Lighting two cigarettes at once) What's the good of reminiscences of to-day, by me, without anything about L.G.?
Edmund. Dear lady, it would never have done. Be reasonable. There are occasions when reticence is imperative.
Mrs. A. Reticence! What words you use!
(Cætera desunt.)
II.
From "A Week in Lovely Lucerne."
By D. Lloyd George.
... I do not say that the mountains hereabout are not more considerable than those of our own beloved Wales, but as material to be employed in perorations they are far inferior. There is not the requisite mist (which may symbolise ignorance or obstinacy or any temporary disturbance or opposition), later to be dispelled by the strong beams of the sun (representing either progress generally or prime-ministerial genius or pure Coalitionism). Other local features I felt, however, I might find rhetorically useful, such as Thorwaldsen's Lion, so noble, so—so leonine, but doomed ever to adhere to the rock, how symbolic of a strong idealist unable to translate his ameliorative plans into action! The old bridge too, uniting the two sides of the city, as one can attempt to link Radicalism and Coalitionism—how long could it endure? And so on. One's brain was never idle.
It was while we were at Lucerne that Lord Riddell and I had some of our most significant conversations. I set them down just as they occurred, extenuating nothing and concealing nothing.