Here are some examples of Mr. Herald's inventions : 'His
valet, John, who accompanies him on all his trips, will invari- ably call him over the phone at 7 a.m. in the summer-time and 8 in winter-time.' Sir Winston has no valet called John, and is never called over the telephone. 'Thereupon Churchill dons a scarlet dressing-gown . . .' Sir Winston, like all sensible men, never wears a dressing-gown in bed, He has not lived to eighty without discovering that a dressing-gown gets wrinkled up in bed. In fact, he wears a bed-jacket. 'Sir Winston has a theory about breakfast . . . served by Edward, his personal cook, which consists of porridge . . .' Sir Winston has never had a personal cook named Edward or anything else, and never eats porridge at breakfast or any other time. 'After coffee Sir Winston lights one of his daily six to eight cigarettes. That's correct : cigarettes.' It is incorrect. Sir Winston has not smoked a cigarette for a quarter of a century. 'Since last May the man who has done more for the world's cigar trade than any other living human being has given up Havanas for good.'' As every- one except Mr. Herald knows, Sir Winston still smokes ten or twelve cigars a day. 'While Sir Winston looks through the morning papers John [sic] prepares his first bath for him.
• . . From the bathroom Churchill goes right back to bed.' In fact, when Sir Winston has had his bath he always gets dressed. 'Ritual No. 4 is a catnap after lunch. He only has to stretch out on the couch in his study and put a black satin bandage over Iris eyes to drop off to sleep like a baby.'. There is no couch in Sir Winston's study : when he has a rest he invariably goes to bed. 'By 11 o'clock, after his third and final bath of the day, he noes to bed. . . .' Sir Winston has never been known to take more than two baths a day, and has never indulged in the eccentricity of having one after dinner. - *
Previous page
