shing me over a box of
cigars.

"What are you going to do about it?" I asked, lighting one and putting
another carefully behind my ear.

"You must remember first," he replied, "that this is quite a modern
difficulty. Statesmen of the past used to make their leisurely
progress through the town surrounded by retainers on horseback, or
in sedan-chairs, beautifully dressed and scattering largesse as they
went. THOMAS A BECKET, the great Primate and Chancellor, used to have
poor men to dine with him and crowds thronging round to bless him.
To-day, I suppose, JOE BECKETT in his flowered dressing-gown would
be a more popular figure than Lord BIRKENHEAD and the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY, if you can imagine them rolled into one. In CHARLES II.'s
reign, when politicians used to play _pele-mele_ where the great Clubs
are now, anyone could rub shoulders with my lord of BUCKINGHAM and,
if he was lucky, get a swipe across the shins with the ducal mallet
itself. That is the kind of thing we want now.

"I had thoughts of running popular excursions down to Walton Heath,
but I am not sure that the people would care to go so far even to see
Sir ERIC GEDDES carrying the home green and Lord RIDDELL--the Riddell
of the sands, as we call him affectionately down there--getting out of
a difficult bunker. So I am trying to arrange for a few putting greens
in railed-off spaces in St. James's Park near the pelicans, and we
also propose to hold there on fine summer days the breakfast parties
for which the PRIME MINISTER is so famous. We shall make a point
of throwing not only crumbs to the birds, but slices of bread and
marmalade to the more indigent spectators. We shall also try to get
two or three open squash racket courts in Whitehall, so that on hot
summer days the most carping critic who watches a rally between Mr.
AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN and the SECRETARY OF STATE for WAR will have to
admit that we are doing our utmost to eliminate waste-products."

"But what about the clothes and the stately progress and the
largesse?" I asked; the largesse idea had struck me with particular
force.

"We are thinking of goat carriages and overalls for economy," he said,
"and the largesse cannot, I am afraid, be allowed for in the Treasury
Estimates. But we shall certainly scatter a handful or two of O.B.E.'s
as we go."

"And how will you deal with the country and the outer suburbs?" I
asked when my admiration had partially subsided.

"Ah, there you have t