Mayne we have mentioned it before—anyway, with two such readers as ours, it is always advisable to mention everything twice—but of all the rapid workers in the world the diplomats seem to us to be the fastest, writes Maurice Lane Norcott in the "Daily Mail." They flash from embassy to embassy as speedily as a bee flits from flower to flower.
"The Greek Ambassador called at the Foreign Office to-day. He remained for ten minutes," we read. Or: "The British emissary was closeted with M. Monnet for a quarter of an hour. He then left for Ankara."
Were we a diplomat we should certainly be the laughing-stock of the legations, because our simplest business negotiations last for hours—sometimes even for days. An interview. of a quarter of an hour would merely confuse us and make us forget what we came for.
"Well, that seems to be all that we can think of just now," we should say, probably picking up M. Bonnet's hat, "An revoir and thanks a lot,"
And then we should bow ourself out and hurry down the corridor until we got to the lift. Then we should turn round and go back again.
"By the way, about that non-aggression pact with Midvia," we should say, putting our head round the door. "On second thoughts, don't let's sign it. They're a treacherous lot."
And then off we should go again and be halfway down the street before, suddenly, those destroyers occurred to us In ten minutes wa should be back once more, "Sorry to be such a jack-in-the-box," we should say, "but there's just one other point that we forgot to mention. It's quite all right about those destroyers, They're already on their way to what's-its-name—you know, that island."
And so it would go on, we fancy, until at last the Government recalled us.
And even then, we dare say, we should miss the last train over the frontier, because we are Just as slow at packing, too. Our suitcase is too small.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.