off. Interviewed abed in his private car at a railway station by a
political friend, he suddenly became conscious of his pyjamas and
rolled back into the bedclothes with a smile. He was not happy in
_deshabille_. Entertained at an arts luncheon in 1913, he made the
most of a very Spartan meal, consented with much dignity to exchange
his plate of cold beef for another man's cold mutton, listened with
great gravity to a short programme of music, asked the names of the
composers and the players and spent most of his brief speech denying
that he was anything but a philistine in art, and pledging himself if
ever he was Premier again to do more for Canadian art than had ever
been done before. In conversation at a friend's house with a stranger
he claimed that at college he was always a "lazy dog." Visited once by
an agent who tried to sell him a phonograph, he consented to play the
flute for a record; after listening to the record and being assured
that it was a faithful replica of his own performance and asked if now
he would not buy the machine, he answered gravely, "No, I think I will
sell the flute." This story may be apocryphal, but it is delightfully
true to character.

On one of the thousands of "occasions" in a career that was almost
perpetual drama he was buttonholed in his office by an American
reporter who, having been warned that the Premier of Canada never gave
interviews, boasted that he would break the rule. After half an hour
the American reporter came out to his confreres of the press gallery,
sat down at a typewriter, lighted three or four cigarettes, nervously
aware that he was being watched for the forthcoming article, and after
spoiling a number of sheets and tearing them all up he confessed,
"Well, boys, I thought I was pumping Laurier, but it's a cinch he spent
most of my time pumping me."

To the Liberal press gallery men he was as much a captain as he was to
his followers in the House. He gave them daily audience during the
Session, very often in a group, and at such times he usually asked,
"Well, boys, what's the news?" He wanted good news; and many a
reporter tricked up the truth now and then to give it to him. Informed
once that "Bob" Rogers had vehemently in his office denied any cabal in
the Cabinet against the Premier he swiftly replied, with that splendid,
satirical smile, "Well, the fact that Bob Rogers says there is none
would convince me that there probably is."

Laurier was th