NOT SO DULL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 301, 20 December 1937, Page 11

NOT SO DULL.

WHITEHALL HUMOUR. ~ \ "AIM AT AN 11 A.M. START. LORD SALISBURY FORGOT. A civil servant's life is not all dull routine. Laughter may often be heard In Whitehall— or so it seems from Sir Lain once Guillemard's reminiscences, savs a writer in "John o' London's Weekly." When Sir Laurence went to the Home Office in the eighties, his first chief, a kindly old gentleman, gave him a lecture on the evils of slackness. He concluded with these memorable words: "And don't get into late habits. I would like you to aim at 11 o'clock." Few of his colleagues, says Sir Laurence, hit that early hour even if thev aimed at it. "They came late, went out to a leisurely lunch, and left early. It was even rumoured that occasionally when the strain of toil relaxed in the afternoon, a hand or two of whist might relieve -the- -tired brain." j On one .occasion, however, Sir Laurence stayed in his room working to an unusually late hour— L about four o'clock. The office charwoman resented this irregularity and kept opening my door and peering in. At last I rose "to go, and as I passed down the corridor I heard her voice, 'You can come in now, gentlemen. The clerks have all gone.' Enter the sweeps!" "I Was Really Sober." One nigut Sir Laurence stayed very late at a ball. On his way home he and an old Cambridge friend stopped at a coffee stall near Hyde Park Corner and then turned into the park. They sat down, a disreputable couple in tousled evening clothes, on one of the seats facing Rotten Row. They went on talking until the first of the riders trotted slowly past. The horseman looked a/t them with interest, and, to his dismay, Sir Laurence recognised his chief! That morning he was at the office at 9.30— much to the surprise of the messengers —and at 10 his chief sent for him. Expecting the worst, he went along— and received an invitation to dinner! Relieved that he had not been spotted after all, he accepted gladly. As he was leaving that night, however, his host drew him aside and said:

"I was glad to find you a,t work ao early thia morning. So many young men of to-day, I fear, keep bad hours and are late for their duties."

So he had seen me after all. I couldn't resist the temptation and said, "Anyhow, 9ir, I was really quite sober."

"I haven't the remotest idea what you are talking about. Good-night." 1

Sir Laurence tells stories of the late Lord Salisbury, one of the most forgetful of men. During the Boer War a batch of cartoons, including some very vulgar ones of Queen Victoria, were sent to the Foreign Office with a dispatch from Paris. Lord Salisbury "initialled the dispatch with the familiar capital S in red ink and returned it without the enclosures. In reply to an inquiry he wrote, 'I'm really very sorry, but I did not realise that the pictures possessed any political importance, and I gave them to my grandchildren to amuse them.'"

Another story was told to Sir Laurence by Harry Foley, Salisbury's private secretary. When the partition of Northern Africa was under discussion, a solemn conference of all the ambassadors concerned was called at the Foreign Office. When they had all arrived, Foley sent a messenger to inform Lord Salisbury. To his horror the messenger came back an<i said:

" "His lordship is not in the office, sir. A short time back he proceeded to the conference room and when he saw the big maps all spread out, he seemed to take a dislike to them and left the building by the private staircase and drove away in his brougham.' "Foley was the most imperturbable of men and equal to any emergency; he entertained the ambassadors with his usual charming courtesy while another of the private secretaries was dispatched post haste to Arlington Street, where he found Lord Salisbury, who, by good luck, had not gone to Hatfield, and brought him back. . . " Labby " and Hia " Slater." One of the most talked-of politicians of his day was Henry Labouchere. His writings and remarks often shocked people —as indeed, they were usually intended to. When he was up at Cambridge, says Sir Laurence, "he was detected by a proctor in the company of a lady of pleasure, and with his usual readiness in a tight place said she was his sister. _ t " 'Nonsense,' said the proctor. 'She s one of the most notorious courtesans of the town.' "'I know that, sir," replied Labby, 'but is it kind to throw my family misl fortunes in my face?'"