{"product_id":"2940013669116","title":"The Room on the Fourth Floor","description":"John Chester ought never to have gone in for\u003cbr\u003epolitics. I am quite certain that he should have sat\u003cbr\u003edown at a desk and written romances, and become a\u003cbr\u003e\"best-seller\", and built himself a marble house, and married\u003cbr\u003ea wife, and hired a press-agent. Instead, as everybody knows,\u003cbr\u003ehe elected to be returned to Parliament twenty-five years ago,\u003cbr\u003eand there he has remained ever since, always upon the fringe\u003cbr\u003eof the Government, though never actually entering those\u003cbr\u003eextraordinary precincts.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eProbably succeeding Premiers have considered that Chester's\u003cbr\u003eduties as a raconteur at fashionable dinner-tables must for ever\u003cbr\u003epreclude him from undertaking anything else, though, I dare\u003cbr\u003esay, he has refused office on his own account. He is just\u003cbr\u003ethe kind of man to do such a thing--a man too keen about\u003cbr\u003eother people to look properly after his own interests.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis appearance, as you know, is military. That white\u003cbr\u003emoustache suggests the field-marshal, and his clothes are\u003cbr\u003eobviously of the dragoon cut. Also, he has a figure which, to\u003cbr\u003emy knowledge has changed not an inch in the last twenty\u003cbr\u003eyears. Some people call him a phenomenon and expect you\u003cbr\u003eto know exactly what they mean, and somehow you do. He\u003cbr\u003eknows everyone and goes everywhere. He has more friends\u003cbr\u003ethan any other man in Europe. And he is the kind of man to\u003cbr\u003ewhom people, even the discreet people, tell things, which\u003cbr\u003epossibly accounts for his amazing stock of stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI was dining with him a week or two ago at the House of\u003cbr\u003eCommons. A world-famous ex-Minister was sitting in\u003cbr\u003esolitary state at the next table. Chester had been unusually\u003cbr\u003esilent, and I wondered what was troubling him; but when the\u003cbr\u003egreat statesman hurried away, my host gave the peculiar\u003cbr\u003echuckle which, with him, is the invariable introduction to some\u003cbr\u003eyarn or other.","brand":"WDS Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47070191059184,"sku":"2940013669116","price":2.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013669116_p0.jpg?v=1763584118","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013669116","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}