s too strong for her."

I regarded Dawson with some interest and more pity. The poor fellow
did not realise that Madame had for years moulded him to her hands
like potter's clay. She had mastered him by ingenuously pretending
that he stood upon a serene pinnacle far removed from her influence.
He had preened his feathers and done her bidding.

"We are not all strong--like you, Dawson," said I mildly.

I switched Dawson off the subject of Madame Gilbert, and directed his
mind towards the contemplation of his own exploits. When handled
judiciously he will talk freely and frankly, giving away official
secrets with both hands. But his confidences always relate to the
past, to incidents completed. When he has a delicate job on hand, he
can be as close as the English Admiralty, even to me. He has no sense
of proportion. Again and again he has recounted the interminable
details of cases in which I take not the smallest interest, and has
ignored all my efforts to dam the unprofitable flood of narrative and
to divert the current into more fruitful channels. He looks at
everything from the Dawson standpoint, and cares for nothing which
does not add to the glory of Dawson. Unless he fills the stage, an
incident has for him no value or concern. Happily for me the most
startling of his exploits, that of bending a timid War Committee of
the Cabinet to his will in the winter of 1915-1916, and of bluffing
into utter submission nearly a hundred thousand rampant munition
workers who were eager to "down tools," fulfils all the Dawson
conditions of importance. He and he alone filled a star part, to him
and to him alone belonged the success of an incredibly bold manoeuvre.
I have drawn Dawson as I saw him, in his weakness and in his strength.
I have revealed his vanity and the carefully hidden tenderness of his
heart. In my whimsical way I have perhaps treated him as essentially a
figure of fun. But though I may smile at him, even rudely laugh at
him, he is a great public servant who once at least--though few at the
time knew--saved his country from a most grievous peril.

In the early weeks of 1916, when work for the Navy, and work in the
gun and ammunition shops which were rapidly being organised all over
the country, were within a very little of being suspended by a general
strike of workmen, terrified for their threatened trade-union
privileges, the strength and resource of Dawson put forth boldly in
the North dammed the peril at it