come? I asked H.G. Wells this question. He has promised to
think it out and tell me. He has the power to guess some things
very well. I'll put that question to Conrad when I next see him.

Does anybody in the United States take the Prime Minister, Mr.
Asquith, to be a great man? His wife is a brilliant woman; and she
has kept a diary ever since he became Prime Minister; and he now
has passed the longest single term in English history. Mr. Dent
thinks he's the biggest man alive, and Dent has some mighty good
instincts.

Talk about troubles! Think of poor Northcliffe. He thinks he's
saved the nation from its miserable government, and the government
now openly abuses him in the House of Commons. Northcliffe puts on
his brass knuckles and turns the _Times_ building upside down and
sets all the _Daily Mail_ machine guns going, and has to go to bed
to rest his nerves, while the row spreads and deepens. The
Government keeps hell in the prayer-book because without it they
wouldn't know what to do with Northcliffe; and Northcliffe is just
as sure that he has saved England as he is sure the Duke of
Wellington did.

To come back to the war. (We always do.) Since I wrote the first
part of this letter, I spent an evening with a member of the
Cabinet and he told me so much bad military news, which they
prevent the papers from publishing or even hearing, that to-night I
almost share this man's opinion that the war will last till 1918.
That isn't impossible. If that happens the offer that I heard a
noble old buck make to a group of ladies the other night may be
accepted. This old codger is about seventy-five, ruddy and saucy
yet. "My dear ladies," said he, "if the war goes on and on we shall
have no young men left. A double duty will fall on the old fellows.
I shall be ready, when the need comes, to take four extra wives,
and I daresay there are others of my generation who are as
patriotic as I am."

All of which is only my long-winded, round-about diplomatic way of
wishing you every one and every one of yours and all the folk in
the office, their assigns, superiors, dependents, companions in
labour--all, everyone and sundry, the happiest of Christmases; and
when you take stock of your manifold blessings, don't forget to be
thankful for the Atlantic