The Fascist dictator had announced he would receive the press. Everybody came. We all crowded into the room. Mussolini sat at his desk reading a book. His face was contorted into the famous frown. He was registering Dictator. Being an ex-newspaper man himself he knew how many readers would be reached by the accounts the men in the room would write of the interview he was about to give. And he remained absorbed in his book. Mentally he was already reading the lines of the two thousand papers served by the two hundred correspondents. ‘As we entered the room the Black Shirt Dictator did not look up from the book he was reading, so intense was his concentration, etc.’
I tip-toed over behind him to see what the book was he was readiung with such avid interest. It was a French-English dictionary -held upside down.

27 de enero de 1923, The Toronto Daily Stary