who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was
dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive
the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft
containing these in front of him. It was a frosty night,
and he was naked and painted black. Firing from the ships was
going on all around. It was a two-hours' swim in pitch darkness.
He did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the
enemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them,
lit his decoys and swam back. He seems to look on this as a gay
affair. He is a V.C. now, and you would not think to look at him
that he could ever have presented such a disreputable appearance.
Would you? (indicating Colonel Freyberg).

Those men of whom I have been speaking as the kind to fill the fife
could all be light-hearted on occasion. I remember Scott by
Highland streams trying to rouse me by maintaining that haggis
is boiled bagpipes; Henley in dispute as to whether, say, Turgenieff
or Tolstoi could hang the other on his watch-chain; he sometimes
clenched the argument by casting his crutch at you; Stevenson
responded in the same gay spirit by giving that crutch to
John Silver; you remember with what adequate results. You must
cultivate this light-heartedness if you are to hang your
betters on your watch-chains. Dr. Johnson--let us have him again--
does not seem to have discovered in his travels that the Scots
are a light-hearted nation. Boswell took him to task for saying
that the death of Garrick had eclipsed the gaiety of nations.
'Well, sir,' Johnson said, 'there may be occasions when it is
permissible to,' etc. But Boswell would not let go. 'I cannot
see, sir, how it could in any case have eclipsed the gaiety of
nations, as England was the only nation before whom he had ever