'No,' I said, 'what has happened?'
'So you've never heard,' he said, regarding me solemnly, tragically, reproachfully. 'I ought to have known that they would do it. I've been very ill, and—they've hushed it up.'
And yet Sir Peter Tweet is one of the leading lights in the world of men!
That is one of the things that has puzzled me all through life. How is it possible for a man to be a leading light and a fool at the same time? Yet lots of people manage it. Sir Peter Tweet's name is a kind of household word. He's about at the top of the tree in his own particular line, yet look what an extraordinary individual he is when you meet him outside. And it's just the same with so many other bright and shining lights that you hear so much about. They give you a dreadful shock when you first meet them. Of course, one does not expect very clever people to shine socially too, but still one does expect something. I guess even if you took the Front Bench and mixed them up with the other members, you would never be able to find them again unless you took very great care. But still, it is a great pity that more leading lights can't be found in India who would still be leading lights even when you had dragged them out from the gloom of their secretarial offices.
There's a good story told of one leading light who only shone at the office desk. He wasn't exactly handsome and he knew it, and was sad. He was never known to look jovial or to smile, and his friends playfully called him behind his
