But in general he has taken little heed of threats. It was only with great difficulty that the Attorney-General could persuade him to sanction a prosecution in the famous case of the poisoned arrow conspiracy. He was always in favour of leniency to the Suffragettes. It is not merely that he hates excessive punishment. His haunting sense of humour seems to be offended by the idea that he is taking up so much room in the world. He dislikes the attendance of detectives almost as much as Mr. Gladstone did. “Can you possibly tell me where Mr. Lloyd George is going?” was the frequent cry of those unhappy followers of Mr. Lloyd George to his friends in those perilous days of civil strife. “He is always giving us the slip,” was their complaint. Sitting one day on one of those little green chairs in the Green Park for which the Londoner pays his obol—a favourite seat of his in those days of peace—at the end of a long talk he sighed and looked grave. He inclined his head towards a shabby-looking individual who was smoking a pipe and sitting not far off under a tree reading a newspaper with apparent indifference to the whole world around him. “There is my guardian angel!” said Mr. Lloyd George. It is not only in facing hostile audiences that he has displayed his courage. He has never hesitated to tell his friends the truth. He has that gift of leadership which consists of making followers do something which they do not want to do. He has put aside all fear of those great influences which overshadow English public life—birth, money, prestige, caste. He represents in high places a new freedom from all those bogies—almost the realisation of Robbie Burns’s dream: “For a’ that, an’ a’ that, It’s coming yet for a’ that, That man to man, the world o’er, Shall brithers be for a’ that.” Not in his most vehement Limehouse days did he say anything stronger than the Scotch ploughman said in his famous song: “Ye see yon birkie ca’d a lord, Wha struts, an’ stares, an’ a’ that; Tho’ hundreds worship at his word, He’s but a coof for a’ that.” Mr. Lloyd George, in fact, always tests man by what is in him; not by the guinea stamp, or by the pedigree. Why should he not? Birth! What birth can there be higher than that of a Welshman?—“The oldest race in these islands.” Money? “I can always get money for a cause; there is no difficulty about money.” That has always been his view; and who can wonder that such should be the belief of a man who has made millionaires subscribe for their own taxation!