I

LORD KITCHENER

_"I never knew a man so fixed upon doing what he considered his
duty."_--CROKER PAPERS.

Soon after he had taken his chair at the War Office, Lord Kitchener
received a call from Mr. Lloyd George. The politician had come to urge
the appointment of denominational chaplains for all the various sects
represented in the British Army.

Lord Kitchener was opposed to the idea, which seemed to him irregular,
unnecessary, and expensive, involving a waste of transport, rations, and
clerks' labour. But Mr. Lloyd George stuck to his sectarian guns, and
was so insistent, especially in respect of Presbyterians, that at last
the Secretary of State for War yielded in this one case. He took up his
pen rather grudgingly and growled out, "Very well: you shall have a
Presbyterian." Then one of his awkward smiles broke up the firmness of
his bucolic face. "Let's see," he asked; "Presbyterian?--how do you
spell it?"

This was one of his earliest adventures with politicians, and he ended
it with a sly cut at unorthodoxy. A little later came another political
experience which afforded him real insight into this new world of Party
faction, one of those experiences not to be lightly dismissed with a
jest.

He discovered at the War Office that preparations had been made for just
such an emergency as had now occurred. The thoughtfulness and
thoroughness of this work struck him with surprise, and he inquired the
name of its author. He was told that Lord Haldane had made these
preparations. "Haldane!" he exclaimed; "but isn't he the man who is
being attacked by the newspapers?"

A chivalrous feeling which does not seem to have visited the bosoms of
any of Lord Haldane's colleagues visited the bosom of this honest
soldier. Someone about him who had enjoyed personal relations with
various editors was dispatched to one of the most offending editors
conducting the campaign against Lord Haldane with the object of stopping
this infamous vendetta.

"I know what you say is true," replied this editor, "and I regret the
attack as much as Lord Kitchener does; but I have received my orders and
they come from so important a quarter that I dare not disobey them." He
gave Lord Kitchener's emissary the name of a much respected leader of
the Unionist Party.

Thus early in his career at the War Office Lord Kitchener learnt that
the spirit of the public school does not operate in Westminster and that
politics are a dirty busi