The under-Secretary by William le Queux

At "question-time" on the following afternoon Dudley Chisholm, as mouthpiece of the Foreign Office, rose to reply to a very pointed and seemingly awkward supplementary question put to him by an obscure Member. There was a big House, and owing to the continual allegations of England's unpreparedness made by the alarmist section of the Press, the answer was listened to with almost breathless interest.

The man who stood there addressing the House affected a calmness which he certainly did not feel. He knew not but that at any moment some Member of the Opposition might rise and there publicly show him up as a political impostor, a man who was sailing under false colours, and who knew of England's danger yet dare not speak because to do so would be to expose his own crime. Nevertheless, even though the terrible tension had worked havoc with him throughout the long night, preventing him from sleeping and causing him to tramp for hours the deserted streets of London, he stood there speaking in his well-known deliberate manner, from time to time making home-thrusts at his political opponents, and eloquently assuring the House and the public that the Empire was safe from attack.