George said, in terms, that Lord Northcliffe
was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. He said that Lord
Northcliffe was not only a grasshopper but a something something
grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping there--that sort of
thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and Lord
Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in fact, so far as I know, he has
never publicly stated that he is _not_ a grasshopper; for all we know it
may be true. But I know a man whose wife's sister was in service at a
place where there was a kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gardener
at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told me--the first man, I mean--that
Lord Northcliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed
in the garden from that day forth; no green that was at all like
grasshopper-green was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to
come upon his Lordship muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He
called me a grasshopper--me--a Grasshopper!" The gardener said that his
Lordship used to finish up with, "_I_'ll teach him;" but that is hardly
the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it. In fact I
don't believe any of it. It is a stupid story.

But this crisis we keep having with France owing to Mr. Lloyd George's
infamous conduct does make the story interesting. The suggestion is, you
see, that Lord Northcliffe lay low for a long time, till everybody had
forgotten about the grasshopper and Mr. Lloyd George thought that Lord
Northcliffe had forgotten about the grasshopper, and then, when Mr.
Lloyd George was in a hole, Lord Northcliffe said, "_Now_ we'll see if I
am a grasshopper or not," and started stridulating at high speed about
Mr. Lloyd George. A crude suggestion. But if it were true it would mean
that the grasshopper had become a figure of national and international
importance. It is wonderful to think that we might stop being friends
with France just because of a grasshopper; and, if Lord Northcliffe
arranged for a new Government to come in, it might very well be called
"The Grasshopper Government." That would look fine in the margins of the
history-books.

Yes, it is all very "dramatic." It is exciting to think of an English
lord nursing a grievance about a grasshopper for months and months,
seeing grasshoppers in every corner, dreaming about grasshoppers.... But
we must not waste time over the fantastic tale. We have not yet solved
our principal problem