And the first question is, Why did Mr. Lloyd George call
Lord Northcliffe a grasshopper? I think it was in a speech about
Russia that Mr. Lloyd George said, in terms, that Lord Northcliffe
was a grasshopper. And he didn't leave it at that. He said that Lord
Northcliffe was not only a grasshopper but a something something
grasshopper, grasshopping here and grasshopping there--that sort of
thing. There was nothing much in the accusation, of course, and Lord
Northcliffe made no reply at the time; in fact, so far as I know, he has
never publicly stated that he is _not_ a grasshopper; for all we know it
may be true. But I know a man whose wife's sister was in service at a
place where there was a kitchen-maid whose young man was once a gardener
at Lord Northcliffe's, and this man told me--the first man, I mean--that
Lord Northcliffe took it to heart terribly. No grasshoppers were allowed
in the garden from that day forth; no green that was at all like
grasshopper-green was tolerated in the house, and the gardener used to
come upon his Lordship muttering in the West Walk: "A grasshopper! He
called me a grasshopper--me--a Grasshopper!" The gardener said that his
Lordship used to finish up with, "_I_'ll teach him;" but that is hardly
the kind of thing a lord would say, and I don't believe it.
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