GLADSTONE say in 1878?" or
whatever year it was. Nobody knew, and neither did the inquirer himself,
but uproar followed and his end was achieved. Now had the question run,
"What did Mr. GLADSTONE do?" how different a result! For Mr. GLADSTONE,
apart from any trifles of statesmanship or legislation, did two priceless
things, as I will show.
Although, writes the Returned Traveller who in our last number was so
unhappy about the deterioration that has come upon taxi-drivers, I left
England only in October last, I find it a changed place; but no change, not
even the iniquitous prices demanded by London's restaurateurs, or the
increased darkness, or the queer division of _hors d'oeuvres_ into
half-courses and whole-courses (providing an answer at last to the pathetic
query, "What is a sardine?" "A whole course, of course")--no change is so
striking as the fact that when a paper now refers to the PRIME MINISTER or
the PREMIER, it means no longer HERBERT HENRY but DAVID. In a world of flux
and mutability I had come to think of Mr. ASQUITH as a rock, a pyramid, a
pole-star. But, alas! even he was subject to alteration.
Thinking earnestly upon his career I have realised bow sad it is that he
has bequeathed us no ASQUITH legend. Always reserved and intent, he
discouraged Press gossip to such a degree as actually to have turned the
key on the Tenth Muse. Everybody else might lunch at the hospitable board
in Downing Street, but interviewers had no chance.
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