British Commonwealth of Nations: Bitter Ale

Day and night a Scotland Yard detective watches a plain brass knocker and the neatly engraved doorplate which bears the legend “No. 10” and marks the extremely modest Downing Street town-house of the British Prime Minister. There that exuberant countryman, Premier Stanley Baldwin, seems always a trifle like a ruddy-faced squire come up to London for perhaps the fifth or sixth time in his life.

Last week he escaped from “No. 10” to “Chequers,” the spacious country house which the British Government provides as an antidote to Downing Street. There he entertained the famed Berkeley Hunt at a sumptuous breakfast set out upon long tables, whistled the Berkeley pack about him, genially called many a canine by name.

Despatches reported that “Wary,’ one of the dogs, leaped up and put its paws on Mr. Baldwin’s shoulders; that “the Premier gamboled like a colt on his own green.”

While smiles widened, he quaffed a tankard of palate-puckering ale. Emerging from the foam he cried: “This is indeed a ‘bitter’ day for the Government!”