ave thought it was rather a good life; no clothes to buy and no
shortage of smells; but there it is. The reason is perhaps that a dog
spends most of his day just finding a really good smell and being diverted
from it by something else, a loud whistle in front or a motor-bicycle or
another smell. He rushes off then after the whistler or the motor-bicycle
or the new smell, missing all kinds of good smells on the way and never
getting the cream of the old one. And that is like the day of the public
man.

He sits up in bed in the morning, having his breakfast and thinking over
the smells he is going to have during the day. There is an enormous choice.
The whole of the bed is covered with papers; there are tables on either
side of the bed covered with papers, letters and memoranda, and agenda and
minutes and constituents' grievances, and charitable appeals and ordinary
begs. When he moves his foot there is a great crackling, and the surface
papers float off into the air and are wafted about the room. Each paper
represents a different smell. He is going to make a speech to the
Bottle-Washers' Union at 11 A.M. and he is reading the notes of his speech;
but before that he has got to introduce a deputation of Fish-Friers to the
HOME SECRETARY at ten and he is trying to find out what the Fish-Friers are
after. But the telephone-bell keeps on ringing and the papers keep on
floating away, and the papers about the Fish-Friers keep mixing themselves
up with the papers about the Bottle-Washers, and the valet keeps coming in
to say that the bath is prepared or the hosier has come, so that it is all
very difficult.

All his family ring him up, and all the people who were at the meeting last
night and were not quite satisfied with the terms of the Resolution, and
all the people who are interested in Fish-Frying and Bottle-Washing, and
all the people who want him to make a speech at Cardiff next year, and
several newspapers who would like to interview him about the Sewers and
Drains Bill, and a man whose uncle has not yet been demobilised, and a lady
whose first-born son would like to be President of the Board of Trade as
soon as it can be arranged. Meanwhile people begin to drift into the room.
The Private Secretary drifts in with a despatch-case, full of new smells
and some old ones; and the valet drifts in to say that the bath is still
prepared, and a haircutter and a man from the shirt-makers, and the
Secretary of the Fish-Friers, who