Charming wit or oily Welshman?

This name is seldom, if ever, on the lips of the man in the saloon bar. But mention Sir Hayden Phillips to men of affairs, men of a certain consequence in our public life, men who are members of his club, Brooks’s, and you will find that they laugh, or smile at least, and say what an amusing fellow he is, besides being a brilliant operator. There is something about the mere thought of Sir Hayden that cheers people up. But should you ask, with a journalist’s impertinence, for some example of Sir Hayden’s wit, or some fuller idea of the man’s charm, your distinguished informant will first reassure himself that he is speaking ‘off the record’, then repeat what he has already said – ‘amusing’, ‘brilliant’, etc. – and end by giving you the telephone number of some other distinguished person who ‘could give you a much better flavour than I can’.