Voules: “Indeed!”
Labouchere: “Now, in your interviews with my little public, I desire that you will tone yourself down a little toward their level.”
Voules (bridling, but dignified): “Mr. Labouchere, ’aughty I never ham; but I ’ope I ’ave a proper pride.”
I can testify personally that, when I knew him, Horace Voules was perfectly sound in the matter of his aspirates. To me, indeed, he appeared to be over-solicitous about them.
No sooner had “Labby,” as he began to be called, got his venture launched, than he opened an attack on the owners of the Daily Telegraph in the most systematic, sustained, and unrelenting vein of personal journalism. Mr. Labouchere’s memoirs, which are in hand, may perhaps relate that old story. It is no business of mine to stir up the puddle. Man of the world, politician, diplomatist, cool-headed as Labouchere had always proved himself, he here undoubtedly permitted himself to be betrayed into a series of libels on an old friend, which were in no way creditable to him. His attacks thereafter were legitimate crusades against the undetected jackals who prey on the public. And the public is considerably in his debt in respect of them. While as to his more piquant and personal libels, it must be reluctantly admitted that their appearance and the circumstances which resulted from them added considerably to the jocundity of those Fleet Street days.
There were quite a number of stories current then as illustrating the delightful insouciance of Labouchere. Here are four of them:
When he was in the diplomatic service, he was sent on a mission to St. Petersburg. Before starting he had a dispute with the Foreign Office about his expenses. F.O. had its idea of the scale; Labouchere had his. But the Office refused to reconsider its decision. Labouchere took his leave, crossed the Channel, and was, to all appearance, lost. A week after the appointed time he had not arrived at St. Petersburg. A representative of F.O. was sent out on his trail. He was traced to Paris, and from thence to Vienna, where he was run to earth. In reply to his discoverer, he coolly said:
“The Foreign Office refused to pay me my expenses, and I’m walking to St. Petersburg.”
He was at one time Attaché at our Embassy in Washington. The Minister was suddenly recalled to London, and Labouchere was left in charge. On the morning following the departure of the Ambassador, one of the members of the United States Government called. “Minister in?” he inquired curtly of Labouchere. “Not in,” replied Labby, lighting a cigarette. “Guess I’ll call again,” said the big politician. “Ah, do!” said Labouchere sweetly. An hour afterwards the same Great Man again put in an appearance. “Minister in yet?” he inquired sharply. “Not yet,” answered Labouchere from behind the paper which he was reading. “Can you give me any idea when he will be back?” asked the important senator impatiently. “I haven’t the remotest idea: he sailed for Europe yesterday,” was the soft answer not altogether calculated to turn away wrath.
When he stood for Northampton, Labouchere’s colleague was Charles Bradlaugh, who frankly avowed his atheism to the shoemakers and other horny-handed artisans who were his supporters. Now, Labouchere, who was an old campaigner, knew that the Liberals of the constituency would not stand two atheists. The moment his address was circulated, the Nonconformists took fright, and, although religious topics were altogether absent from the astute candidate’s pronunciamento, eager Dissent sniffed heterodoxy in every line of it. Labouchere thereupon sat down and wrote an autograph letter to every Nonconformist divine, on the register and off it, asking each of them to meet him, and for the purpose of discussing those topics which all good Liberals hold dear. He hired the biggest room in his hotel. He had a line of chairs drawn up in uncompromising rows along the two principal side-walls. At the end of the room was a table with a tumbler and a carafe of water. Lying promiscuously around were copies of the Daily News and the Christian World. The invited ministers turned up to a man. The candidate’s agent met them and conducted them, with every demonstration of respect, to the seats allotted to them. When Labouchere, waiting in an ante-chamber, was informed that they were all come, he entered the room. He bowed right and left, a sad smile on his lips, a black suit enveloping his person, and a general air of Chadband emanating from all parts of him. He took his place behind the table, poured out a tumbler of water, drank it down with all the gusto of one who thoroughly enjoyed it, and forthwith addressed his sad audience.