imbo by the
pressure of other schemes. If he were to schedule his office day into
five-minute appointments he would still be unable to see only a
proportion of the important men and executive chiefs who desire to get
in touch with him, and yet he will allow himself to be drawn into an
hour's keen discussion with persons who have some minor topic which
appeals to him. Withal, he gets things done. Some intuition, some
instinct for right action, takes him to his goal. The task in hand is
always accomplished to the limit of efficiency. You may seek his
secret in vain. Probably part of it lies in his natural power of
selecting his instruments. All the same I do not envy the lot of his
two principal private men secretaries and the girl stenographer whose
business it is to follow and, to some extent, direct his erratic course
throughout his office hours.

His speeches which in their printed form sell literally by the million,
are scarcely prepared at all before he gets on the platform. Sometimes
the wording as it appears in cold black and white lacks a little
polish, but it has a vital and stimulating force marking it out as
distinctive literature. He has a few notes as to facts and figures and
weaves them into a picture as he stands before his audience. When his
famous speech at Limehouse thrilled England a London newspaper
proprietor went down to see him in the House of Commons. "Why didn't
you let me know you were going to make that speech?" he said. "I would
have had special arrangements made for reporting it and describing it."
"There was nothing special in it," said Lloyd George, in genuine
surprise. "It was just an ordinary talk about the Budget. I went down
to Limehouse and spoke to an audience I found there, that's all."

No one will deny Lloyd George's courage. On a hundred stricken fields
he has shown it. Yet he confesses to a timorousness and nervousness
whenever he is waiting on a public platform with a speech ahead of him.
This proven, stern man of action is just a trembling bunch of nerves,
afraid of the people in front of him, afraid of the people by his side
on the platform, as he sits waiting the fateful second when the
chairman shall announce his name.

Lloyd George's unexpectedness comes from the fact that he is a
many-sided man. Success has not atrophied either his manners or his
impulses. He is not ashamed to be very human because he has become
very important. I remember how, during