At the first meeting of the Committee, Le Bas objected to this procedure.  Early the next morning he went around to the house of Reginald McKenna, Chancellor of the Exchequer.

“The Chancellor is in his bath,” said the footman who opened the door.

“Then I’ll wait until he can get a robe on,” said Le Bas.

Fifteen minutes later, the man who holds the British purse strings sat clad in a dressing gown and listened to the suggestion that revolutionised British methods of financial salesmanship.

“If we want to sell the War Loan, Mr. Chancellor,” said Sir Hedley, “we will have to advertise in a big way.  It’s a business proposition and we must adopt business methods.”

“It sounds interesting,” said the Chancellor.  “Come to my office at ten and we will talk it over.”

It was then 8:30 o’clock.  By the time he met the Chancellor at the Treasury he had dictated the whole outline of the advertising campaign.  The scheme was adopted:  the Government spent fifty thousand pounds advertising the loan but it sold every penny of it.

This then was the type of man who had sat in the six meetings of War Loan for Small Investors and listened to many conventional suggestions.  He instinctively knew that the Five Pound Exchequer Bond was not a sufficient bait to hook the small savings of the great mass of the people.

“We’ve got to make some kind of attractive offer,” said Sir Hedley to himself.  “In fact, we must give the investor something for nothing to make him lend his money to the country.  A pound note looks big to the average Englishman.  Why not give him a pound for every fifteen shillings and sixpence that he will lay aside for the use of the Nation?  In other words, why not make patriotism profitable?”

When he laid this plan before the Committee, it was unanimously approved.  The maxim of “Fifteen and Six for a Pound” was now unfurled to the breezes and the super-campaign to corral the British penny was on, under the auspices of the National War Savings Committee which now superseded all other organisations as the head and front of the National Thrift idea.

Although he had a strong selling appeal in the fact that he was giving the small British investor something for nothing, Sir Hedley realised that his first bid for savings must have the real punch of war in it.  What was it to be?

He thought a moment and then went over to the War Office where Lloyd George had just succeeded the lamented Kitchener.

“What could a man buy for fifteen and six?” he asked the many-sided little Welshman who was progressively filling every important job in the Empire.

“He could buy six trench bombs,” was the reply.

“What else?” queried the publisher.

“He could get 124 cartridges or—­”

“That’s enough!” exclaimed Le Bas.  “I’ve got it!”

Lloyd George looked a little startled, whereupon his visitor remarked:  “You have given me just the thing I wanted.  Wait until to-morrow and you will find out what it is.”