ener could have done otherwise than support the attitude of the
Government of which he was a member.

Striking testimony to the confidence which his name inspired amongst
our Allies is afforded by the action of the Russians in the summer of
1915, in entrusting the question of their being furnished with
munitions from the United States into his hands. They came to him as a
child comes to its mother. This, be it noted, was at a time when our
own army fighting in many fields was notoriously none too well fitted
out with weapons nor with ammunition for them, at a time when the most
powerful group of newspapers in this country had recently been making
a pointed attack upon him in connection with this very matter, at a
time when an idea undoubtedly existed in many quarters in the United
Kingdom that the provision of vital war material had been neglected
and botched under his control. That there was no justification
whatever for that idea does not alter the fact that the idea
prevailed. As I assumed special responsibilities in connection with
Russian supplies at a later date, a date subsequent to the _Hampshire_
catastrophe, and as the subject of munitions will be dealt with in a
later chapter, no more need be said on the subject here. But the point
seemed to deserve mention at this stage.

We came rather to dread the occasions when the Chief was going to
deliver one of his periodical orations in the House of Lords.
Singularly enough, he used to take these speeches of his, in which he
took good care never to tell his auditors anything that they did not
know before, quite seriously--a good deal more seriously than we did.
He prepared them laboriously, absorbing a good deal of his own time,
and some of the time of certain of those under him, and then he would
read out his rough draft to one, asking for approval and grateful for
hints. He was always delighted to have some felicitous turn of
expression proffered him, and he would discuss its merits at some
length as compared with his own wording, ending by inserting it in the
draft or rejecting it, as the case might be. I remember on one
occasion, when he was going to fire off one of these addresses, just
about the time when the great Boche thrust of 1915 into the heart of
Russia came to an end, his making use of the idiom that the German
"bolt was about shot." I objected. "Don't you like the phrase?"
demanded Lord K. I admitted that it was an excellent phrase in itself,
but urg