“God Save the King” is worn out. We don’t individualise now. It is as worn out as knee breeches for Court Functions or Gold Lace Coats for Sea Officers. CHAPTER VI PUBLIC SPEECHES I have made four accurately reported public speeches, the fifth one (at Mr. Josephus Daniels’s reception by the American Luncheon Club) is too inadequate to include here. For none of these four speeches had I any notes, except for the one of a hundred words and one of fifty words, both delivered in the House of Lords. The other two were simply and solely my exuberant verbosity, and they must be read with that remark in mind. I was saturated with the subject; and when the _Times_ reporter came and asked me for my speech before I’d made it, I told him with truth that I really didn’t know what I was going to say. I might have been like Thackeray (What a classic case his was!). He was the Guest of Honour. He got up, was vociferously cheered, and was dumb. After a death-like silence he said these words, and sat down:--“If I could only remember what I thought of to say to you when I was coming here in the cab, you really would have had a delightful speech!” [Illustration: A GROUP ON BOARD H.M.S. “STANDARD,” 1909. 1. The Empress Marie of Russia. 2. The Czarina. 3. Sir John Fisher. 4. The Grand Duchess Olga. 5. The Czar. ] I.--THE ROYAL ACADEMY BANQUET, 1903. The Navy always readily appreciates the kind words in which this toast is proposed, and also the kind manner in which it is always received. I beg to thank you especially, Mr. President, for your kind reference to Captain Percy Scott, which was so well deserved. He was indeed a handy man. (Cheers.) Personally I have not the same pleasurable feelings on this occasion as I enjoyed last year, when I had no speech to make. I remember quite well remarking to my neighbour: “How good the whitebait is, how excellent the champagne, and how jolly not to have to make a speech.” He glared at me and said: “I have got to make a speech, and the whitebait to me is _bête noire_, and the champagne is real pain.” (Laughter.) He was so ready with his answer that I thought to myself: “You’ll get through it all right,” and sure enough he did, for he spoke thirty minutes by the clock without a check. (Laughter.) I am only going to give you three minutes (cries of “No.”) Yes. I always think on these occasions of the first time I went to sea on board my first ship, an old sailing two-decker, and I saw inscribed in great big gold letters the one word “Silence.” (Laughter.) Underneath was another good motto: “Deeds, not words.” (Cheers.) I have put that into every ship I have commanded since. (Cheers.) This leads me to another motto which is better still, and brings me to the point of what I have to say in reply to the toast that has been proposed. When I was Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean I went to inspect a small Destroyer, only 260 tons, but with such pride and swagger that she might have been 16,000 tons.