s as the labours we were supposed
to be engaged on. Mr. Goschen had recently been appointed First Lord
of the Admiralty, and one distich in the official version ran: "May
Goschen have a notion of the motion of the ocean, if ever I cease to
love." It is to be apprehended that Mr. Balfour acquired a better
notion of the motion of the ocean than he cared for, on these
destroyer trips in which he was in the habit of indulging; for when we
fetched up on this side of the Channel and made our way to the
attendant dining-car, where the trained eye instantly detected the
presence of glasses on the tables of that peculiar shape that denotes
the advent of bubbly wine (none of your peasant drinks when the
taxpayer is standing treat), the First Lord rolled up swathed in a
shawl, a lamentable bundle, and disappeared like a transient and
embarrassed phantom into a corner, to be seen no more until we
steamed into Charing Cross.

The run up to town from Dover by special was edifying and was not
uninstructive, for it threw some light upon the mystery that is
connected with the frequent leaking-out of matters which upon the
whole had better be kept secret. A train composed of only a couple of
cars makes less noise than the more usual sort, and our dining-car
happened to be a particularly smooth-running one. The consequence was
that almost every word that was said in the car could be heard by
anybody who chose to listen. The Big Three (Mr. Balfour had deserted
as we have seen) sat together at one table, whilst we lesser fry
congregated close at hand at others. The natural resilience following
upon the conclusion of the Conference and the happy termination of
cross-Channel buffetings may perhaps have been somewhat stimulated by
draughts of sparkling vintage; but, be that as it may, the Prime
Minister and the Minister of Munitions were in their most expansive
mood, and after a time their conversation was followed by the rest of
us with considerable interest. To the sailors present, as also to one
or two of the junior soldier-officers, it was probably news--and it
must surely have been news to the waiters--to learn that Sir J. French
was shortly to vacate command of the B.E.F. in France. Nor could we be
other than gratified at the discussions concerning Sir D. Haig's
qualifications as a successor; I was expecting every moment to hear
Sir W. Robertson's suitability for the post freely canvassed; he was
sitting back-to-back with the Munitions