FORCEFUL PROSE
PRIME MINISTER BILLY HUGHES AND HIS SECRETARY. The story of the first meeting of W. M. Hughes and Percy Deane may be apochryphal, but it is good enough to be true. It was a meeting by accident, literally; and Billy Hughes, feeling a necessity to relieve his "feelings, want'ed to know what the flaming asterisk hlazes wasl th'e meaning of the lurid shoving to which Deane replied so effectively in his own language that Hughes was moved to inquire who he was, learning that he wag of young journalist of the name of Deane. - Wben Billy, half-way through' the war, wanted a digger private secretary, and heard thjat the young man who knew the bad words, was available, he did not feel inclined to go any further. Deane remained on after the w?ar as Prime Minister's secretary. He failed in spite of his capabilities to suit other P.M.'s as well; but Billy and he got on amazingly. Sometimes a conversation between them wp.s an idxample of forcible diction; and Billy liked a man who could talk back at him. A colleague of th'e P.M's, leaving the office with him, after listening to one of these conflicts, remarked dryly: "You have been teaching your secretary to express himself forcefully." "Teaching him!" retorted Hughes. He was a master when first I ?net him!" "
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Bibliographic details
Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 410, 20 December 1932, Page 2
Word Count
223FORCEFUL PROSE Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 410, 20 December 1932, Page 2
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