A Spectator's Notebook
11 MR. A. P. WADSWORTH, who has been forced by persistent i health to resign the active editorship of the Manchester Guardian, is by far the most distinguished journalist of the daY I can remember my first meeting with him in the little room which for years he refused to abandon after he had become editor. It was late in the afternoon and he gave me a While Paper to read while he wrote a leader. I had scarcely come to the bottom of the third page before he had finished his article and was ready to talk again. At another interval during this conversation somebody brought him an official paper which he consumed in about three minutes. Later I learned that his speed both in writing and in reading was already legendary in Cross Street. Certainly I have never met anyone who could get the whole sense of anything at all, however complicated, in such a fantastically short time. No man is perfect and it may be that Wadsworth was sometimes slightly diffident in his dealings with a staff all too ready to plague him with suggestions. 'Have I to go to Peru or not?"Well, we'll see about that.' Somebody once said that the best thing to do in such circumstances was simply to go to Peru, but I never met the man who did go.
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