Hope had answered England's Call. Lloyd
George had done it again.

I first met Lloyd George during those crowded days when he was
Commander-in-Chief of the host that fed the firing line. Under his
magnetic direction British industry had been forged into a colossal
munitions shop. No man in England was busier: not even the King was more
inaccessible. Life with him was one engagement after another.

Now came one of those swift emergencies that seems to crowd so fast upon
Lloyd George's life and with it arose my own opportunity.

The British Trade Union Congress in annual session at Bristol had
expressed Labour's dissatisfaction over its share of the munitions
profits. Lloyd George had sent them a letter explaining his proposed
excess profit tax, but this apparently was not enough. The delegates
still growled.

"Then I'll go down and speak to them in person," said the Minister with
characteristic energy.

Thus it happened that I journeyed with him to the old town, background
of stirring naval history. On the way down half a dozen department heads
poured into his responsive ears the up-to-the-minute details of the work
in hand. He became a Human Sponge soaking up the waters of fact.

At Bristol in a crowded stuffy hall he faced what was at the start
almost a menacing crowd. Yet as he addressed them you would have thought
that he had known every man and woman in the assembly all their lives.
The easy, intimate, frank manner of his delivery: his immediate claim to
kinship with them on the ground of a common lowly birth: his quick and
stirring appeal to their patriotism swept aside all discord and
disaffection. As he gave an eloquent account of his stewardship you
could see the audience plastic under his spell. The people who had
assembled to heckle sat spellbound. When he had finished they not only
gave him an ovation but pledged themselves anew to the gospel of "More
Munitions."

It was on the train back to London that I got a glimpse of the real
Lloyd George. What Roosevelt would have called "a bully day" had left
its impress upon the little man. His long grey hair hung matted over a
wilted collar: there was a wistful sort of weariness in his eyes. He
sank into a big chair and looked for a long time in silence at the
flying landscape. Then suddenly he aroused himself and began to talk.
Like many men of his type whom you go to interview he began by
interviewing the interviewer.

The first two questions that Lloyd G