eeping one.

Then came a period when one was going about receiving and giving
congratulations and watching the other men arrive, very like a boy who
has returned to school with the first batch after the holidays. The
London world reeked with the General Election; it had invaded the
nurseries. All the children of one's friends had got big maps of England
cut up into squares to represent constituencies and were busy sticking
gummed blue labels over the conquered red of Unionism that had hitherto
submerged the country. And there were also orange labels, if I remember
rightly, to represent the new Labour party, and green for the Irish. I
engaged myself to speak at one or two London meetings, and lunched
at the Reform, which was fairly tepid, and dined and spent one or two
tumultuous evenings at the National Liberal Club, which was in active
eruption. The National Liberal became feverishly congested towards
midnight as the results of the counting came dropping in. A big
green-baize screen had been fixed up at one end of the large
smoking-room with the names of the constituencies that were voting that
day, and directly the figures came to hand, up they went, amidst cheers
that at last lost their energy through sheer repetition, whenever there
was record of a Liberal gain. I don't remember what happened when there
was a Liberal loss; I don't think that any were announced while I was
there.

How packed and noisy the place was, and what a reek of tobacco and
whisky fumes we made! Everybody was excited and talking, making waves of
harsh confused sound that beat upon one's ears, and every now and then
hoarse voices would shout for someone to speak. Our little set was much
in evidence. Both the Cramptons were in, Lewis, Bunting Harblow. We gave
brief addresses attuned to this excitement and the late hour, amidst
much enthusiasm.

"Now we can DO things!" I said amidst a rapture of applause. Men I did
not know from Adam held up glasses and nodded to me in solemn fuddled
approval as I came down past them into the crowd again.

Men were betting whether the Unionists would lose more or less than two
hundred seats.

"I wonder just what we shall do with it all," I heard one sceptic
speculating....

After these orgies I would get home very tired and excited, and find it
difficult to get to sleep. I would lie and speculate about what it was
we WERE going to do. One hadn't anticipated quite such a tremendous
accession to power for on