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"It would be more patriotic perhaps," observed Lord RHONDDA'S minion sententiously, "not to make jam at all." "Ah!" I said. "Have a glass of beer before you go." Nobody out here seems exactly infatuated with the politicians nowadays. The Front Trenches have about as much use for the Front Benches as a big-game hunter for mosquitoes.
The Cox's Orange Pekoes have done frightfully well this year the new blend, you know; or should I say hybrid?" At this moment my wife appeared, looking particularly charming in a mousseline de soie aux fines herbes anglicé, a sprigged muslin. I seized her hand and led her aside. "Lord RHONDDA'S myrmidon is upon us!" I hissed. "'Tis for your husband's life, child.
The work of his office was carried to victory by Sir William Beveridge, Captain Tallents, Professor Gonner, and other very able men in charge of rationing; but this work must have failed had it not been for public confidence in Lord Rhondda's integrity; and, moreover, Lord Rhondda's character played no small part in firing that work with a zeal and passion which were excelled by no other department of public service.
"Applications were not made till the fruit was on the trees," said Lord RHONDDA'S minion, sharply. "Ah, there's a nice lot of plums." This seemed more satisfactory. "Yes, isn't there?" I said enthusiastically. "Now I'm sure this makes up the amount all right." "Plums are stone fruit," he observed stonily, "and you were allocated one hundredweight of sugar for your soft fruit, I believe?"
Day and daily we had set our stroke up by the long pull from the anchorage to the wharves, old Burke coaching and encouraging, checking and speeding us, till we worked well together. Only last Sunday he had taken us out of our way, up the creek, to where we could see the flag at the Rhondda's masthead.
The old man said nothing, but well we knew he was thinking of how the square of blue silk, with Californian emblem worked in white, would look at his trim little Hilda's fore-truck! Tea over still excited talk went on. Some one recalled the last time we had overhauled and passed the Rhondda's gig.
This was the man who saved the nation from one of its greatest perils during perhaps the most critical period of the war. As one examines Lord Rhondda's administration of the Ministry of Food one discovers an interesting and surely an important fact in the psychology of our public life. His triumph, which was one of the greatest in the war, lay almost entirely in the region of personality.