There was one of these international gatherings, one that was held in Mr. Lloyd George's room in the War Office about November 1916 when he was Secretary of State for War, of which I have a vivid recollection. M. Albert Thomas and General Dall' Olio, the respective Munitions Ministers in France and Italy, had come over, accompanied by several assistants; and the Russian Military Attache from Paris with several representatives of the special Russian Commission in England were present, as well as the Head of the Roumanian Military Mission in France. The Russians, Roumanians and Italians all, needless to say, wanted to get as much as they could out of us, and the French were quite ready to back the Russians and Roumanians up. Mr. Lloyd George made a tip-top chairman, conciliatory and, thanks to ignorance of French, always unable to understand what was said when it happened to be inconvenient to grasp the purport. At one juncture M. Thomas and General Dall' Olio came rather to loggerheads over something or other, steel I think. Had they been Britishers, one would have been preparing to slip under the table so as to be out of harm's way; but Latin nations are more gesticulatory than we are, and this sort of effervescence does not mean quite so much with them as it does when it shows a head amongst us frigid islanders. Just when the illustrious pair of Ministers were inclined to get a little out of temper, arguing of course in French, Mr. Lloyd George burst out laughing, threw himself back in his chair and ejaculated, "Now will some kind friend tell me what all that's about!" He had touched exactly the right note. Everybody beamed. The disputants burst out laughing too, harmony was completely restored, and the discussion was conducted thenceforward in friendliest fashion.