Читать книгу Set Down in Malice: A Book of Reminiscences онлайн

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I allowed my voice to die away to nothing.

Wilson, really disturbed, moved a little uneasily on his chair, rose, scratched his head, sat down again and sighed.

“I must tell him,” said he. “I must warn him that, at the very beginning of his speech, he must appeal to the audience to deal gently with any interrupters.... Torn limb from limb.... You really think that?”

I felt a little sorry to have disturbed him so much, and yet I knew that I very much preferred an anxious, harassed Wilson to a Wilson who was smooth and sleek.

Next morning at breakfast he was again smooth and self-satisfied.

“I have seen him,” he whispered, like a conspirator; “I have seen him. It is arranged. Everything is all right.”

Later on that morning I was myself received by MrLloyd George in his house. I went prejudiced against him and determined at all hazards not to allow myself to be won over by that charm of manner of which I had heard so much.

But in five minutes I had succumbed. He has a wonderful gift of making you feel that he thinks you are the most interesting and most intelligent person he has ever met. What he really does think, I suppose, is that you (of course, I don’t mean you; I mean myself) are an unmitigated bore, and while his eyes are smiling at you he is really saying to himself: “Why doesn’t the fellow go?...” Yes, he has charm. He does not fuss and he is not over-emphatic in his manner. And he is a most ssss1 deferential listener. He will even ask you your opinion about matters of which he knows ten times more than yourself, and he will do you the honour of arguing with you.