Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman
international financier, who was in a position to collect information and influence opinion, was left at large, thanks to highly-placed friends and a title. They said that some of the Cabinet were absolutely dependent on him. . . Though I saw nothing of the man, I could not help hearing of him, for the mob broke his windows in Westbourne Terrace whenever there was an air-raid; they said he was shewing lights to guide the Zeppelins to Paddington. Whether there was a word of truth in it I can’t say. . . And, when he erected an enormous hospital at Rock Hill, even this was not accounted to him for righteousness: the men there held him to ransom, his own patients. Some one would whisper that he had a secret wireless apparatus on his roof; and immediately Sir Adolf would build another ward or a recreation-room or a picture theatre. . .
And in another sense they disappeared: as Will said, “Plant an Erckmann in England, and up comes an Erskine.” Poor souls, if they had changed their names before the war and if some one could have performed an operation to rid Sir Adolphus of that appalling guttural accent. . . I really began to feel sorry for them when all their friends—led, if you please, by my Lady Maitland—turned the cold shoulder. “Satisfy me,” I said to Arthur, “that he is
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