[E]very political leader has a handlanger. Like a toddler with a security blanket, the political handlanger is a necessary sop and sponge for all the tension that goes with the job. And there is nothing either disreputable or degrading about the role. Politics can be spiteful and demanding; the handlanger is the trusted confidant, the one person whom the leader can sound out, seek counsel from and trust.

The Jylland only missed running down a schooner by a few yards in the fog; it was a near thing—near enough, in fact, to allow of some shouted remarks between those on the bridge of the motorship and the man at the wheel of the schooner to be clearly heard.

[W]hy in a moment looke to ſee / The blind and bloody Souldier, with foule hand / Deſire the Locks of your ſhrill-ſhriking Daughters: / Your Fathers taken by the ſiluer Bears, / And their moſt reuerend Heads daſht to the Walls: / Your naked Infants ſpitted vpon Pykes, / Whiles the mad Mothers, with their howles confus'd, / Doe breake the Clouds, … / What ſay you? Will you yeeld, and thus auoyd? / Or guiltie in defence, be thus destroy'd.

The book should appeal to boys for its readability and lookability, and to teachers, particularly in those many schools where […]