Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/174

 He belonged to that rare order of men who seemed to find it easy to get other human beings to do anything they are asked.

Finally, the postal reformer was one of the great unseen powers of the House of Commons, because no man in it was so constant, so generous, and so agreeable a host. There was scarcely a day when he did not bring together, either in the House of Commons or in some club, a big lunch or dinner-party. His guests came from everywhere. An inveterate globe-trotter, constantly passing between his home in England and his business in Australia, never satisfied until he met and entertained every man in the world worth knowing, insatiate in his interest in human beings, he could bring together more remarkable men, and from more diverse parts of the world, than almost any other man who ever sat in Parliament. It was a Continental Statesman one day, the next it was a Minister from Australia, the next from Canada, and then perhaps a great Governor of some outlying region of the Empire. At his table there was no distinction of party: Liberals, Tories, Irish Orangemen, Irish Nationalists, all were welcome, and all felt equally at home. it was at a feast of this kind that you saw Henniker Heaton at his best. He said little himself, being more anxious about his guests enjoying themselves, and bringing out what was in them. The chief contribution he made was a hearty, infectious laugh, deep-noted and resonant, that became so familiar as to be almost historic in the dining-rooms of the House of Commons.