"There is an Indian proverb, Lord Lammersfield," I observed, "which says that 'Hurry is the Devil.' In the present instance I am inclined to agree with it."
"It would certainly be the devil to me," admitted his lordship frankly. "My five thousand a year from the Home Office is all that I have to live on at present. If I can hold out till next year, things ought to right themselves a little. There will be some insurance money coming in in the spring, and I have a couple of yearlings at Cranleigh, on which Morris is building very high hopes. Still we can hardly consider them a trust security!"
I laughed. If only an average Liberal voter could have overheard his respected leader, what a study his face would have been. I began to wonder whether all Cabinet Ministers were as delightfully human as Lord Lammersfield.
"Well," I said, knocking the end off my cigarette, "they are good enough for me. I rather like a slightly speculative investment."
If my companion failed to satisfy one or two of the conventional ideas of a successful British statesman, he was at least the master of his emotions. He received my words without the faintest change of expression.
"It might sound a little ironical to say that I am deeply indebted to you, Northcote," he answered. Then he paused. "To be quite candid," he added, "I never expected that you would take this—how shall we put it?—impersonal attitude. Your last letter on the subject—"
"Ah!" I interrupted quickly, inwardly anathematising Northcote. "We'll dismiss that last letter if you have no objection. I have changed my mind since then."
Lammersfield accepted this eminently true information with a courteous inclination of his head.
"As you please," he said. "You leave me under an immense obligation to you. I can only add that if there is any matter in which I can be of service to you, now or at any time, you mustn't hesitate to mention it. The Home Secretaryship is a singularly distasteful office to an intelligent man, but it has at least the merit of putting one in a position to be occasionally useful to one's friends."
I smiled. His lordship's cynical outlook on human nature and on the privileges of Cabinet rank amused me intensely. He was evidently prepared for some request on my part in return for the favour I had done him, and I wondered what Northcote would have asked if he had been in my place. I had no doubt that my enterprising double must have had some purpose at the back of his mind when he originally advanced the money.