Salty Stories

Saturday, October 7th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken

Mrs. Lewis Harcourt

I went to London on Thursday. Lunched at Lady Paget's. The business was the appeal I had written for the American Women's Hospital. Lady P. was late and I ate with Mrs. Lewis Harcourt. I liked her. Youngish. Quiet. Self-possessed. Always a pleasure to chat to a pretty woman who seems genuinely interested in what one has to say. Harcourt is Secretary of State for the Colonies. Regrettably for Mrs. H., Harcourt is widely known to be a sex maniac, though nobody seems willing to expose him publicly. Apparently he likes girls and boys indiscriminately! Lady P. came down when our lunch was nearly over. She confided 'private information' about the way Zepps are caught. Two aeroplanes go up with a long wire between them. When they have got this wire against the Zepp they electrify it and it sets fire to the Zepp. She seemed to believe this. Some people will swallow anything.

Lord Fisher

Yesterday yet another lunch, this time at McKenna's. I sat between Lord Fisher and Miss Davidson. In two minutes Fisher had referred to 'bloody experts'. Touching Falkland battle and Cradock's defeat, he said that a tortoise had been sent to catch a hare, and then two tortoises. He said to me "that it doesn't want an expert to see that a tortoise can't catch a hare, and that a hare has never yet been wounded by a tortoise and won't be." He was evidently still feeling his shunt from the Admiralty. He said: "I was the only one who objected to the Dardanelles Expedition. Kitchener was in favour of it. He's dead. Won't say anything about him. He got the Order of the Garter. I got the Order of the Boot." He told some excellent stories with strong language. They say he is like a boy. He absolutely is. He said: "I'm told I shall live till I'm 110. So I've plenty of time yet." He gave me his favourite quotation:

Not heaven itself upon the past has power,

What has been has been, and I have had my hour.

They also say that he smacks more of the forecastle than of the bridge. There is something in this too.