On several occasions he has spoken to me of the sorrows and sufferings of humanity with an unmistakable sympathy.

I remember in particular one occasion on which he told me the story of his boyhood: it was a moving narrative, for never once did he refer to his own personal deprivations, never once express regret for his own loss of powerful encouragements in the important years of boyhood.

The story was the story of his widowed mother and of her heroic struggle, keeping house for her shoemaking brother-in-law on the little money earned by the old bachelor's village cobbling, to save sixpence a week--sixpence to be gratefully returned to him on Saturday night.

"That is the life of the poor!" he exclaimed earnestly.

Then he added with bitterness, "And when I try to give them five shillings a week in their old age I am called the 'Cad of the Cabinet'!" Nothing in his life is finer than the struggle he waged with the Liberal Cabinet during his days as Chancellor of the Exchequer.