Does the hand lose its cunning? I had practically given up all forms of rapid journalism, when, on November 24th, 1910, I was suffering from a cold (which had, by the way, prevented my seeing my own tableaux got up for a charity at the Court Theatre). The telephone buzzed and fumed. “Will you speak to the editor of the _Daily Mail_, please, ma’am, at once?” asked the parlourmaid. Down I went to the ’phone in my dressing-gown. “There is a report that Diaz is assassinated.” “Don’t believe it,” I replied. “But the telegram is lying before me,” he continued. “Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I know Diaz. I know his home, and I know the Mexican people.” “Would I write fourteen hundred words at once?” After some persuasion I promised to write something for the next day’s publication, although stoutly refusing to write an obituary. It so chanced my secretary was not at hand, so without looking up anything, I wrote those fourteen hundred words by hand in fifty minutes. The boy came up from the _Daily Mail_ office to fetch it an hour after my conversation with the editor, and bore it off, to be telegraphed to Paris and Manchester. Then I had some Cambridge friends to luncheon, followed by my “At Home” day. That night I dined at the “Criterion,” a Society of Authors’ Dinner, went on to a reception, given by the Chairman of the County Council, Mr. Whitaker Thompson, at the Hotel Cecil, and then to bed. Of course the cold was worse, but inhaling creosote (of all sweet scents!) soon improved it again; and I slept peacefully until early tea began another strenuous day, and brought the following column of type to my bedside. Here it is, just as it was scribbled: PORFIRIO DIAZ. THE MAN WHO MADE MEXICO. _By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE, Author of “Seven Times President of Mexico.”_ That General Diaz was the greatest man the nineteenth century produced is a bold assertion—and yet I have no hesitation in making it. The statement is especially bold of a century that recognised so many great men. But then Diaz rose from humble origin, and became a dictator, a very Czar and Pope in one, and not only did he attain such a position, but he has kept it. For over thirty years he has governed the country he once roamed as a shoeless boy, and now, as he announced yesterday in a special cable to the _Daily Mail_, he has suppressed yet another revolt and has established his rule yet more firmly.