J 6 Labouchere's Stories [1902 



their own destinies without our interference, and the same for Ire- 

 land. 



" 22nd Jan. — Lunched with Labouchere, who was as usual very 

 amusing, describing- the intrigues and dissensions of the Liberal lead- 

 ers. ' If you were to take them all together,' he said, ' and boil them 

 in a pot, Campbell Bannerman, Asquith, Morley, Rosebery, and Grey, 

 you would not get the worth of a mouse out of them.' Of the 

 Liberal Imperialists none had any following in the country except 

 Rosebery. He told, too, some interesting stories about his own past 

 adventures, how he had ridden once from Cairo to Suez in company 

 with Shepheard, the founder of the hotel, sleeping one night on the 

 road, also from Damascus to Palmyra with Lady Ellenborough and 

 her Bedouin husband Mijuel some time in the fifties, when she was 

 still almost a young woman. And again in Mexico with a notorious 

 robber. He was in every way most pleasant. I have known Labby 

 now for forty years and feel a real affection for him. 



" 24th Jan. — Called on Redmond at St. Ermin's Club. He holds 

 a high position now in the House of Commons and in the world. 

 He was in America last autumn and tells me everyone there is pro- 

 Boer including Roosevelt, the President. 



" 28th Jan. — I have been, since Saturday, at Hewell and have seen 

 much of Rowton who is staying here. He has been most agreeable. 

 I have had him pretty nearly to myself and we have made great 

 friends. He still delights to talk of his old master Dizzy and de- 

 scribed how they first met at Raby in 1865. There was a large 

 party in the castle, and Rowton, a young fellow then of five-and-twenty, 

 was asked by the ladies one evening to play the fool for their amuse- 

 ment, and he had sung a comic song and was in the middle of a 

 breakdown when he caught the eye of the old man fixed on him 

 and was filled with shame at being detected in such absurdity, but 

 in the course of the evening a hand was laid upon his shoulder and 

 a lugubrious voice said, ' Mr. Corry, I shall ask you some day to 

 be my impressario.' This led to a talk on serious subjects, and even- 

 tually to Rowton's being taken on as assistant private secretary. 

 Ralph Earle was then the first private secretary, but he threw up 

 his position with Disraeli to take an appointment in the City soon 

 after, and made use of his former position to look in at Downing 

 Street and read the confidential papers for his profit on the Stock 

 Exchange. Rowton was given his succession, but had the disagreeable 

 task assigned him of telling Earle he was to come there no longer. 

 Earle revenged himself by making a bitter speech against his former 

 master at a critical moment in the House of Commons. The thing 

 affected Dizzy deeply, less from the ingratitude shown by Earle than 

 from shame at having been taken in and trusted his secrets to such 



