being aware of the fact. Yet it is done. I once hung a silk hat up in the
smoking-room of the House of Commons. When I wanted it, it was gone. And
there was no silk hat left in its place. I had to go out bareheaded through
Palace Yard and Whitehall to buy another. I have often wondered who was the
gentleman who put my hat on and carried his own in his hand. Was he a Tory?
Was he a Radical? It can't have been a Labour man, for no Labour man could
put a silk hat on in a moment of abstraction. The thing would scorch his
brow. Fancy Will Crooks in a silk hat! One would as soon dare to play with
the fancy of the Archbishop of Canterbury in a bowler--a thought which
seems almost impious. It is possible, of course, that the gentleman who
took my silk umbrella did really make a mistake. Perhaps if he knew the
owner he would return it with his compliments. The thing has been done. Let
me give an illustration. I have myself exchanged umbrellas--often. I hope I
have done it honestly, but one can never be quite sure. Indeed, now I come
to think of it, that silk umbrella itself was not mine. It was one of a
long series of exchanges in which I had sometimes gained and sometimes
lost. My most memorable exchange was at a rich man's house where I had been
invited to dine with some politicians. It was summer-time, and the weather
being dry I had not occasion for some days afterwards to carry an umbrella.
Then one day a sensation reigned in our household. There had been
discovered in the umbrella-stand an umbrella with a gold band and a gold
tassle, and the name of a certain statesman engraved upon it. There had
never been such a super-umbrella in our house before. Before its golden
splendours we were at once humbled and terrified--humbled by its
magnificence, terrified by its presence. I felt as though I had been caught
in the act of stealing the British Empire. I wrote a hasty letter to the
owner, told him I admired his politics, but had never hoped to steal his
umbrella; then hailed a cab, and took the umbrella and the note to the
nearest dispatch office.