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The worst of it is that Lady D. agreed with you. . . . Seriously, however: suppose Winston were to use a perfectly commonplace metaphor, to say, e. g., that he had ordered the Gallipoli expedition off his own bat. Would that for all time raise those four words from the commonplace to the exceptional? Could you never employ that phrase except in "quotes"?. . .
Be sensible. Do not fight against your rescuer. Let me, when I receive the Royal Humane Society's medal, feel that my gallant efforts were not in vain, that I succeeded in saving your life and soul!. . .
P. S. An invitation to the . . . Oppenheim wedding has just arrived. Like the man who answered the big-game-hunter's advertisement, I'm not going.[1]*
- ↑ The reference here is to a story illustrative of the tricks which a man's memory sometimes plays him: Reading in the Morning Post, that Mr. John Brown, of 500 Clarges Street, is shortly leaving for Uganda on a big-game-shooting expedition and would like a gentleman to come with him, sharing expenses, thought no more of the advertisement and went about his day's work. That night he dined intemperately. On being ejected from his club, he was bound for home when he recalled the forgotten advertisement and decided that something must be done about it. Driving to 500 Clarges Street, he demanded to see Mr. John Brown. "Are you Mr. John Brown?" he enquired of a sleepy and illhumoured figure in pyjamas. "I am, sir," answered John Brown.
