wound Randolph but Chamberlain was inexorable. As Hicks-Beach hesitated, Chamberlain set Lord Harrington to work and Harrington's intervention settled the matter: Randolph must give up the idea of representing Central Birmingham or destroy the coalition.
Randolph left the decision to Hicks-Beach and Hicks-Beach told him he must save the party and withdraw. Randolph felt the blow intensely. The news had got out, and to be beaten by Chamberlain, he felt, was humiliating.
Randolph went racing, began to bet heavily and at first made money. People smiled as at the aberrations of a boy.
A year or so later came another blow. The government announced its intention to appoint a Royal Commission to enquire into the accusations of Parnell by The Times. Randolph, well informed as always on Irish matters, saw the danger and out of sheer greatness of soul sent to W. H. Smith a protest pointing out the peril, more than hinting, indeed, his opinion that Parnell would be whitewashed. His old colleagues were too stupid to pay any attention to his warning. When the report came before the House early in 1890, Randolph drafted an amendment with Jennings, blaming The Times while ignoring the action of the government. Jennings was to introduce the amendment which Randolph promised to support in a speech. The House was thronged: Jennings was in his place waiting to be called on by the Speaker
when Randolph got up and began attacking the government in the bitterest words he could find. When he sat down he saw that Jennings was angry and wrote him several little notes, but Jennings was seriously offended and would never speak to Randolph again. The truth is, as his son has said, Randolph was too much of an aristocrat, too self-centered, too imperious and impatiently irritable to be a good friend. He quarreled with almost everyone, notably with Gorst and Matthews, who owed him much — with everyone, indeed, except Hicks-Beach, Ernest Beckett, afterwards Lord Grimthorpe, his brother-in-law Lord Curzon, and Wolff, whom he seldom saw.
After the Chamberlain business I saw less of him, but I met him a little later in Monte Carlo and dined with him and had him to dinner more than once, as I shall tell later.
While he played lieutenant to Randolph, I met Louis Jennings frequently and got to like him really; and after the quarrel over the amendment I saw still more of him. He wanted me to take up the New York Herald in London and edit it. But I had good reason to distrust Gordon Bennett,! as I may tell later, and so nothing came of Jennings' well meant proposal. But it brought us close together, and in his anger over what he called Randolph's traitorism, we often discussed Randolph and his future. Jennings was an excellent, kind fellow, with brains enough to appreciate Randolph's brains, and dowered besides with perfect unselfish loyalty. Speaking of Randolph once he said,
'You know he doesn't like you, don't you?'
'No,' I replied. 'I thought he rather liked me, not that it matters much: his likings and dislikings are not reasonable.'
'He has great charm of manner,' said Jennings, 'when he likes, and he uses it and reckons on it. But he's done for; we're wasting time talking about him.'
'What do you mean?' I cried. 'He's in his prime, has twenty years before him and unique parliamentary genius. If he'd give up gambling and playing the fool, he could be Leader of the House and Prime Minister again within a couple of years.'
Jennings shook his head: 'He's not so strong as you think; in my opinion he's doomed.'
'What on earth do you mean?' I exclaimed.
'I oughtn't to tell it, I suppose,' he said, 'but Randolph told it to me casually enough once when trying to explain a headache and a fit of depression, and it's an interesting story.'
Here it is as I heard it from Jennings that evening in Kensington Gore.
'Randolph was not a success at Oxford at first,' Jennings began. 'He never studied or read; he rode to hounds at every opportunity and he was always as imperious as the devil. But after all, he was the son of a Duke and Blenheim was near and the best set made up to him, as Englishmen do. He was made a member of the Bullingdon Club, the smartest club in Oxford, and one evening he held forth there on his pet idea that the relationship of master and servant in the home of an English gentlemen was almost ideal. 'Any talent in the child of a butler or gardener,' he said, 'would be noticed by the master, and of course he'd be glad to give the gifted boy an education and opportunity such as his father could not possibly afford. Something like this should be the relationship between the aristocratic class and the workmen in England: that is Tory-democracy as I conceive it.' Of course the youths all cheered him and complimented him and made much of him, and when the party was breaking up, one insisted on a 'stirrup-cup.' He poured out a glass of old brandy and filled it up with champagne and gave it to Randolph to drink. Nothing loath, Randolph drained the cup, and with many good wishes all the youths went out into the night. Randolph assured me that after he had got into the air he remembered nothing more. I must now let Randolph tell his own story.'
'Next morning,' Randolph began, 'I woke up with a dreadful taste in my mouth, and between waking and sleeping was thunder-struck. The paper on the walls was hideous-dirty-and, as I turned in bed, I started up gasping: there was an old woman lying beside me; one thin strand of dirty grey hair was on the pillow. How had I got there? What had happened to bring me to such a den? I slid out of bed and put on shirt and trousers as quietly as I could, but suddenly the old woman in the bed awoke and said, smiling at me, 'Oh, Lovie, you're not going to leave me like that?' 'She had one long yellow tooth in her top jaw that waggled as she spoke.
Speechless with horror, I put my hand in my pocket and threw all the money I had loose on the bed. I could not say a word. She was still smiling at me; I put on my waistcoat and coat and fled from the room. 'Lovie, you're not kind!' I heard her say as I closed the door after me. Downstairs I fled in livid terror. In the street I found a hansom and gave the jarvy the address of a doctor I had heard about. As soon as I got to him, he told me he knew my 'brother and…' I broke out in wild excitement, 'I want you to examine me at once. I got drunk last night and woke up in bed with an appalling old prostitute. Please examine me and apply some disinfectant.' Well, he went to work and said he could find no sign of any abrasion, but he made up a strong disinfectant and I washed the parts with it; and all the time he kept on trying to console me, I suppose, with cheap commonplaces. 'There isn't much serious disease in Oxford. Of course there should be licensed houses, as in France, and weekly or bi-weekly examination of the inmates. But then we hate grandmotherly legislation in England and really, my dear Lord Randolph, I don't think you have serious cause for alarm.' Cause for alarm, indeed; I hated myself for having been such a fool! At the end I carried away a couple of books on venereal diseases and set at work to devour them. My next week was a nightmare. I made up my mind at once that I deserved gonorrhea for my stupidity. I even prayed to God, as to a maleficent deity, that he might give me that; I deserved that, but no more, no worse: not a chancre, not syphilis!
'There was nothing, not a sign, for a week. I breathed again. Yet I'd have to wait till the twenty-first day before I could be sure that I had escaped syphilis. Syphilis! Think of it, at my age, I, who was so proud of my wisdom. On the fateful day nothing, not a sign. On the next the fool doctor examined me again: 'Nothing, Lord Randolph, nothing! I congratulate you. You've got off, to all appearance, scot-free.' 'A day later I was to dine with Jowett, the Master of Balliol. It was a Sunday and he had three or four people of importance to meet me. He put me on his left hand; he was always very kind to me, was Jowett. I talked a lot but drank very sparingly. After that first mad excess, I resolved never to take more than two glasses of wine at any dinner and one small glass of liqueur or brandy with my coffee. I wouldn't risk being caught a second tune. I was so thankful to God for my immunity that vows of reform were easy.
'In the middle of dinner suddenly I felt a little tickling. Strange! At once I was alarmed, and cold with fear, excused myself and left the room. Outside I asked a footman for the lavatory, went in and looked at myself. Yes! There was a little, round, very red pimple that tickled. I went out and begged the butler to excuse me to the Master. 'I am feeling very ill,' I said, 'and must go home.' ''You don't look well,' he replied, and in a minute I was in a hansom and on the way to the doctor's. Luckily he was in and willing to see me. I told him what brought me and showed him the peccant member. At once he took out his most powerful lens and examined me carefully. When he had finished I asked him, 'Well?' ''Well,' he said dispassionately, 'we have there a perfect example of a syphilitic sore!' Why I didn't kill him, I don't know.
'Inwardly I raged that I should have been such a fool. I, who prided myself on my brains, I was going to do such great things in the world, to have caught syphilis! I! It was too horrible to think of. Again the fool doctor: 'We must cure it,' he was saying. 'It's incurable,' I retorted; 'all the books admit that.' ''No, no,' he purred on. 'Taken in time we can make it innocuous. Mercury is a sovereign remedy, nothing equal to it, though very, very depressing.
