The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-01-12

brain seemed paralyzed. A corpse could have spoken as well.
 In the minister's vestry after the meeting I introduced to him our treasurer. I had offered George, when inviting him to the meeting, what was in that day in England. a positively enormous fee. Only once in my English life did I pay as large a sum to a speaker. This was to Dean Farrar-but that is another story. The treasurer offered George a check. He looked at it and turned to me, "Aked. what is this?' '' said: Tt is the amount I. offered you when I first asked you to come" He turned upon me fiercely, What do you take me for a pickpocket? Do you think am going to take money for making rotten speech like that? I've made a fool of myself and you, too, but l am not going to be paid for it.' I admitted that the speech was not the greatest he had made in his ad- venturous career, and he scoffed; but insisted that a bargain is bargain and he must take the money. Don't play the goat,' he said; tits bad enough to make a speech like that without taking money for it."
 And so the contest went on. Final ly, demanded whether he wished to pay his own railway fare and ] hotel bill, and he said, Well, you can give me f5 note." So the big fee has not been paid to this day.
 It was like him, as I knew him Ithen. He was always unselfish. He spent himself with prodigal extrava- gance in the service of good move ments. He seemed not to know what self-seeking was He carried him. self superbly-indifferen to the money prizes he could so easily have won. He was the soul of chivalry, the champion of unpopular causes, the hero of every forlorn hope. Even when he became a member of the government the compromises compelled now and. again by the ex- agencies of party politics were irk- some to him. If he could not speak he could smile! And his smile was oracular. Augustine Birrell, after ward chief secretary of Ireland, had introduced the governments educa- ton bill, supposed to be, designed to redress the grievances of us Free Churchmen and at the same time CO.,
 
 school systems, was member of various committees which for years had agitated this matter.
 So I was in the House of Commons to hear Birrell explain the govern ment's proposal. The member for Blackburn had secured for me a seat, not in the strangers gallery, but ac- tually in the House, under, the gall lery," as it is called, where the lucky stranger can talk to members during the progress of the debate Lloyd George came to me after Birrell had spoken and asked what I thought of the bill. did not like to tell a mem- Der of the government how deeply the government had disappointed my hopes, and hesitated and bcggled over a reply.
 "Out with it,'' Lloyd George said, 'you don't like it?''
 The Strength of Frankness. :. And then I said what I had to say. He listened, smiled sardonical- ly, and. went his way. He found it difficult to defend that bill, and when, after much chopping and changing the government formally withdrew it, called to mind his smile which Il. Really, his frank speech has been a part of his strength It is not Welsh: it.ais English. His intellect 1 is, swift. It pounces on a. fact like a hawk on it's prey. And this is not Welsh, either. But the directness of speech. the demand for an honest avowa1 of conyiction, the relentless candor which offers and which com pels straigntforwardness are all typi- cally English. And they have ex- pressed themselves through the me- dium of this indescribable Welsh eloquence. with it's pathos and plead ing and fpersuasiveless, and guileless- ly guileful sweet reasonableness It is a curious combination. There is nothing like it in British states manship. It is difficult to under stand how this man, a convinced and ardent woman suffragist who had nobly stood for the woman's cause when it's friends were few; could ever have come to be regarded as the most sinister foe the .woman's cause had to fear.
 It is very feeble to say, "He shines 1 in repartee." Every great English man does. It is in the blood of the British orator. Interruption of a speech by the man on the floor or up in the gallery is expected, is look l ed for, and it is part of the success full speakers equipment that he can set the crowd roaring with laughter by his reply. Sometimes the inter- rupter is a fool, but even that gives the speaker a chance.
 His Fighfing Wit.
 I remember when I was a boy
 listening to Sir William Harcourt in Derby. It was after Joseph Cham berlain's secession from the Liberal ranks, and Harcourt was roasting him to a turn. Promptly came the interruptions: Why did he marry an American wife?" The everlasting
 laughter which died down and rose again, and laked i4terminable min
 tues, which seemed hours, must have surprised the fellow who had yelled
 what he thought a pretty bit of in-
 suit. And Sir William Harcourt,
 beaning all over his big broad face
 and rollicking with his huge body
 over the platform, at last made his
 voice heard in answer: '.Now, don't
 say anything about that. I did it I myself"
 Yet with all these memories scores that corne back to me as l
 lapse into anecdotage-I seriously think that swift thrust by Lloyd George holds the worlds record He was discussing a project then known