_ "Thus, then, live I
Till 'mid all the gloom
By Heaven! the bold sun
Is with me in the room
Shining, shining!
"Then the clouds part,
Swallows soaring between;
The spring is alive
And the meadows are green!
"I jump up like mad,
Break the old pipe in twain,
And away to the meadows,
The meadows again!"
The poem of FitzGerald's from which these verses come was known, I believe, to very few until Mr. E. V. Lucas exhumed it from _Half-hours with the Worst Authors_, and reprinted it in that delightful little book _The Open Road_. I have a notion that even FitzGerald's most learned executor was but dimly aware of its existence. For my part, at this time of the day, I prefer it to his Omar Khayyam--perversely, no doubt. In the year 1885 or thereabouts Omar, known only to a few, was a wonder and a treasure to last one's lifetime; but I confess that since a club took him up and feasted his memory with field-marshals and other irrelevant persons in the chair, and since his fame has become vulgarised not only in Thames-side hotels, but over the length and breadth of the North American continent, one at least of his admirers has suffered a not unnatural revulsion, until now he can scarcely endure to read the immortal quatrains. Immortal they are, no doubt, and deserve to be by reason of their style--"fame's great antiseptic." But their philosophy is thin after all, and will not bear discussion. As exercise for a grown man's thought, I will back a lyric of Blake's or Wordsworth's, or a page of Ibsen's _Peer Gynt_ against the whole of it, any day.
This, however, is parenthetical. I caught hold of FitzGerald's verses to express that jollity which should be every man's who looks up from much reading or writing and knows that Spring has come.
"Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et favoni
Trahuntque siccas machinae carinas . . ."
In other words, I look out of the window and decide that the day has arrived for launching the boat--
"This is that happy morn,
That day, long wished day!"
And, to my mind, the birthday of the year. Potentates and capitalists who send down orders to Cowes or Southampton that their yachts are to be put in commission, and anon arrive to find everything ready (if they care to examine), from the steam capstan to the cook's apron, have little notion of the amusement to be found in fitting out a small boat, say of five or six tons. I sometimes doubt if it be not the very flower, or at least the bloom, of the whole pastime. The serious face with which we set about it; the solemn procession up the river to the creek where she rests, the high tide all but lifting her; the silence in which we loose the moorings and haul off; the first thrill of buoyant water underfoot; the business of stepping the mast; quiet days of sitting or pottering about on deck in the sunny harbour; vessels passing up and down, their crews eyeing us critically as the rigging grows and the odds and ends--block, tackle and purchase--fall into their ordered places; and through it all the expectation running of the summer to come, and 'blue days at sea' and unfamiliar anchorages--unfamiliar, but where the boat is, home will be--
"Such bliss
Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss."
Homer, who knew what amused men, constantly lays stress on this business of fitting out:--
"Then at length she (Athene) let drag the swift ship to the sea, and stored within it all such tackling as decked ships carry. And she moored it at the far end of the harbour. . . . So they raised the mast of pine tree, and set it in the hole of the cross plank, and made it fast with forestays, and hauled up the white sails with twisted ropes of oxhide."
And again:
"First of all they drew the ship down to the deep water, and fixed the oars in leathern loops all orderly, and spread forth the white sails. And squires, haughty of heart, bare for them their arms,"--but you'll observe that it was the masters who did the launching, etc., like wise men who knew exactly wherein the fun of the business consisted. "And they moored her high out in the shore water, and themselves disembarked. There they supped and waited for evening to come on." You suggest, perhaps, that our seafaring is but play: and you are right. But in our play we catch a cupful of the romance of the real thing. Also we have the real thing at our doors to keep us humble. Day by day beneath this window the statelier shipping goes by; and our twopenny adventurings and discoveries do truly (I believe) keep the greater wonder and interest awake in us from day to day--the wonder and interest so memorably expressed in Mr. Bridges's poem, _A Passer By_:--
"Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
Ah! soon when Winter has all our vales opprest,
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest
In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling?
"I there before thee, in the country so well thou knowest,
Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:
I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare.". . . .
"And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine.
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding."
Though in all human probability I shall never be the first to burst into a silent sea, I can declare quite seriously that I never steer into an unfamiliar creek or haven but, as its recesses open, I can understand something of the awe of the boat's crew in Andrew Marvell's "Bermudas;" yes, and something of the exultation of the great Columbus himself!
In a later paper I may have to tell of these voyages and traffickings. For the while I leave the reader to guess how and in what corner of the coast I happened on the following pendant to Mr. Dobell's _trouvaille_.
It may not challenge comparison with Mr. Flinders Petrie's work in Egypt or with Mr. Hogarth's Cretan explorations; but I say confidently that, since Mr. Pickwick unearthed the famous inscribed stone, no more fortunate or astonishing discovery has rewarded literary research upon our English soil than the two letters which with no small pride I give to the world this month.
Curiously enough, they concern Mr. Pickwick.
But, perhaps, by way of preface I shall remind the reader that the final number of _Pickwick_ was issued in November, 1837. The first French version--which Mr. Percy Fitzgerald justly calls 'a rude adaptation rather than a translation'--appeared in 1838, and was entitled _Le Club de Pickwickistes, Roman Comique, traduit librement de l'Anglais par Mdme. Eugenie Giboyet_. With equal justice Mr. Fitzgerald complains (_The History of Pickwick_, p. 276) that "the most fantastic tricks are played with the text, most of the dialogue being left out and the whole compressed into two small volumes." Yet, in fact, Mme. Giboyet (as will appear) was more sinned against than sinning. Clearly she undertook to translate the immortal novel in collaboration with a M. Alexandre D--', and was driven by the author's disapproval to suppress M. D--'s share of the work. The dates are sufficient evidence that this was done (as it no doubt had to be done) in haste. I regret that my researches have yielded no further information respecting this M. Alexandre D--'. The threat in the second letter may or may not have been carried out. I am inclined to hope that it was, feeling sure that the result, if ever discovered, will prove in the highest degree entertaining. With this I may leave the letters to speak for themselves.
(1)
"45 Doughty Street,"
"September 25th, 1837."
"MY DEAR MADAM,--It is true that when granting the required permission to translate _Pickwick_ into French, I allowed also the license you claimed for yourself and your _collaborateur_--of adapting rather than translating, and of presenting my hero under such small disguise as might commend him better to a Gallic audience. But I am bound to say that--to judge only from the first half of your version, which is all that has reached me--you have construed this permission more freely than I desired. In fact, the parent can hardly recognise his own child.
"Against your share in the work, Madame, I have little to urge, though the damages you represent Mrs. Bardell as claiming--300,000 francs, or 12,000 pounds of our money--strikes me as excessive. It is rather (I take as my guide the difference in the handwriting) to your _collaborateur_ that I address, through you, my remonstrances.
"I have no radical objection to his making Messrs. Snodgrass, Winkle, and Tupman members of His Majesty King Louis XIII.'s corps of Musketeers, if he is sincerely of opinion that French taste will applaud the departure. I even commend his slight idealisation of Snodgrass (which, by the way, is not the name of an English mountain), and the amorousness of Tupman (Aramis) gains--I candidly admit--from the touch of religiosity which he gives to the character; though I do not, as he surmises, in the course of my story, promote Tupman to a bishopric. The development--preferable as on some points the episcopal garb may be considered to the green velvet jacket with a two-inch tail worn by him at Madame Chasselion's _fete champetre_-- would jar upon our Anglican prejudices. As for Winkle (Porthos), the translation nicely hits off his love of manly exercises, while resting his pretensions on a more solid basis of fact than appears in the original. In the incident of the baldric, however, the imposture underlying Mr. W.'s green shooting-coat is conveyed with sufficient neatness.
"M. D--' has been well advised again in breaking up the character of Sam Weller and making him, like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once. Buckingham (Jingle) and Fenton (a capital rendering of the Fat Boy) both please me; and in expanding the episode of the sausage and the trouser-buttons M. D--' has shown delicacy and judgment by altering the latter into diamond studs.
"Alas! madam, I wish the same could be said for his treatment of my female puppets, which not only shocks but bewilders me. In her earlier appearances Mrs. Bardell (Milady) is a fairly consistent character; and why M. D--' should hazard that consistency by identifying her with the middle-aged lady at the great White Horse, Ipswich, passes my comprehension. I say, madam, that it bewilders me; but for M. D--'s subsequent development of the occurrences at that hostelry I entertain feelings of which mere astonishment is, perhaps, the mildest. I can hardly bring myself to discuss this with a lady; but you will allow me to protest in the very strongest terms that Mr. Pickwick made that unfortunate mistake about the sleeping apartment in the completest innocence, that in ejaculating 'ha-hum' he merely uttered a note of warning, and that 'ha-hum' is _not_ (as M. D--' suspects) an English word from which certain syllables have been discreetly removed; that in thrusting his head through the bed-curtains he was, as I am careful to say, 'not actuated by any definite object'; and that, as a gentleman should, he withdrew at the earliest possible moment. His intercepted duel with Mr. Peter Magnus (De Wardes) rests, as I fondly imagined I had made clear, upon a complete misunderstanding. The whole business of the _fleur-de-lys_ on Mrs. Bardell's shoulder is a sheer interpolation and should be expunged, not only on grounds of morality, but because when you reach the actual trial, 'Bardell _v_. Pickwick,' you will find this discovery of the defendant's impossible either to ignore or to reconcile with the jury's verdict. Against the intervention of Richelieu (Mr. Nupkins) I have nothing to urge. M. D--' opines that I shall in the end deal out poetical justice to Mrs. Bardell as Milady. He is right. I have, indeed, gone so far as to imprison her; but I own that her execution (as suggested by him) at the hands of the Queer Client, with Pickwick and his friends (or, alternatively, Mrs. Cluppins, Mr. Perker, and Bob Sawyer) as silent spectators, seems to me almost as inconsistent with the spirit of the tale as his other proposal to kidnap Mr. Justice Stareleigh in the boot of Mr. Weller's coach, and substitute for his lordship the Chancery prisoner in an iron mask. I trust, madam, that these few suggestions will, without setting any appreciable constraint on your fancy, enable you to catch something more of the spirit of my poor narrative than I have been able to detect in some of the chapters submitted; and I am, with every assurance of esteem,
Your obliged servant,
Boz."
"P.S.--The difference between Anjou wine and the milk punch about which you inquire does not seem to me to necessitate any serious alteration of the chapter in question. M. D--'s expressed intention of making Master Bardell in later life the executioner of King Charles I. of England must stand over for some future occasion. The present work will hardly yield him the required opportunity for dragging in King Charles' head."
(2)
"MADAME,--Puisque M. Boz se mefie des propositions lui faites sans but quelconque que de concilier les gens d'esprit, j'ai l'honneur de vous annnoncer nettement que je me retire d'une besogne aussi rude que malentendue. Il dit que j'ai concu son _Pickwick_ tout autrement que lui. Soit! Je l'ecrirai, ce _Pickwick_, selon mon propre gout. Que M. Boz redoute mes _Trois Pickwickistes!_ Agreez, Madame, etc., etc., Alexandre (le Grand)." I am told that literary aspirants in these days do not read books, or read them only for purposes of review-writing. Yet these pages may happen to fall in the way of some literary aspirant faint on a false scent, yet pursuing; and to him, before telling of another discovery, I will address one earnest word of caution. Let him receive it as from an elder brother who wishes him well.
My caution is--Avoid irony as you would the plague.
Years ago I was used to receive this warning (on an average) once a week from my old and dear friend Sir Wemyss Reid; and once a week I would set myself, assailing his good nature, to cajole him into printing some piece of youthful extravagance which he well knew--and I knew--and he knew that I knew--would infuriate a hundred staid readers of _The Speaker_ and oblige him to placate in private a dozen puzzled and indignant correspondents. For those were days before the beards had stiffened on the chins of some of us who assembled to reform politics, art, literature, and the world in general from a somewhat frowsy upstairs coffee-room in C--' Street: days of old--
"When fellowship seem'd not so far to seek
And all the world and we seem'd much less cold
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold. . . ."
Well, these cajoleries were not often successful, yet often enough to keep the sporting instinct alive and active, and a great deal oftener than F--'s equally disreputable endeavours: it being a tradition with the staff that F--' had sworn by all his gods to get in an article which would force the printer to flee the country. I need scarcely say that the tradition was groundless, but we worked it shamelessly.
In this way on January 9th, 1897 (a year in which the Westminster Aquarium was yet standing), and shortly after the issue of the New Year's Honours' List, the following article appeared in _The Speaker_. The reader will find it quite harmless until he comes to the sequel. It was entitled--
NOOKS OF OLD LONDON.
I.--THE WESTMINSTER SCUTORIUM.
Let me begin by assuring the reader that the Westminster Scutorium has absolutely no connection with the famous Aquarium across the road. I suppose that every Londoner has heard, at least, of the Aquarium, but I doubt if one in a hundred has heard of the little Scutorium which stands removed from it by a stone's throw, or less; and I am certain that not one in a thousand has ever stooped his head to enter by its shy, squat, fifteenth-century doorway. It is a fact that the very policeman at the entrance to Dean's Yard did not know its name, and the curator assures me that the Post Office has made frequent mistakes in delivering his letters. So my warning is not quite impertinent.
But a reader of antiquarian tastes, who cares as little as I do for hypnotisers and fasting men, and does not mind a trifle of dust, so it be venerable, will not regret an hour spent in looking over the Scutorium, or a chat with Mr. Melville Robertson, its curator, or Clerk of the Ribands (_Stemmata_)--to give him his official title. Mr. Robertson ranks, indeed, with the four pursuivants of Heralds' College, from which the Scutorium was originally an offshoot. He takes an innocent delight in displaying his treasures and admitting you to the stores of his unique information; and I am sure would welcome more visitors.
Students of Constitutional History will remember that strange custom, half Roman, half Medieval, in accordance with which a baron or knight, on creation or accession to his title and dignities, deposited in the king's keeping a waxen effigy, or mask, of himself together with a copy of his coat of arms. And it has been argued-- plausibly enough when we consider the ancestral masks of the old Roman families, the respect paid to them by the household, and the important part they played on festival days, at funerals, &c.--that this offering was a formal recognition of the _patria potestas_ of the monarch as father of his people. Few are aware, however, that the custom has never been discontinued, and that the cupboards of Westminster contain a waxen memorial of almost every man whom the king has delighted to honour, from the Conquest down to the very latest knight gazetted. The labour of modelling and painting these effigies was discontinued as long ago as 1586; and the masks are no longer likenesses, but oval plates of copper, each bearing its name on a label. Mr. Robertson informed me that Charles I. made a brief attempt to revive the old practice. All the Stuarts, indeed, set store on the Scutorium and its functions; and I read in an historical pamphlet, by Mr. J. Saxby Hine, the late curator, that large apartments were allocated to the office in Inigo Jones's first designs for Whitehall. But its rosy prospects faded with the accession of William of Orange. Two years later the custody of the shields (from which it obtained its name) was relegated to the Heralds' College; and the Scutorium has now to be content with the care of its masks and the performance of some not unimportant duties presently to be recounted.
A reference from the Heralds' College sent me in quest of Mr. Melville Robertson. But even in Dean's Yard I found it no easy matter to run him to earth. The policeman (as I have said) could give me no help. At length, well within the fourth doorway on the east side, after passing the railings, I spied a modest brass plate with the inscription _Clerk of the Ribands. Hours 11 to 3_. The outside of the building has a quite modern look, but the architect has spared the portal, and the three steps which lead down to the flagged entrance hall seem to mark a century apiece. I call it an entrance hall, but it is rather a small adytum, spanned by a pointed arch carrying the legend _Stemmata Quid Faciunt_. The modern exterior is, in fact, but a shell. All within dates from Henry VI.; and Mr. Robertson (but this is only a theory) would explain the sunken level of the ground-floor rooms by the action of earthworms, which have gradually lifted the surface of Dean's Yard outside. He contends the original level to be that of his office, which lies on the right of the adytum. A door on the left admits to two rooms occupied by the _nomenclator_, Mr. Pender, and two assistant clerks, who comprise the staff. Straight in front, a staircase leads to the upper-apartments.
Mr. Robertson was writing when the clerk ushered me in, but at once professed himself at my service. He is a gentleman of sixty, or thereabouts, with white hair, a complexion of a country squire, and very genial manners. For some minutes we discussed the difficulty which had brought me to him (a small point in county history), and then he anticipated my request for permission to inspect his masks.
"Would you like to see them? They are really very curious, and I often wonder that the public should evince so small an interest."
"You get very few visitors?"
"Seldom more than two a day; a few more when the Honours' Lists appear. I thought at first that your visit might be in connection with the new List, but reflected that it was too early. In a day or two we shall be comparatively busy."
"The Scutorium is concerned then with the Honours' Lists?"
"A little," replied Mr. Robertson, smiling. "That is to say, we make them." Then, observing my evident perplexity, he laughed. "Well, perhaps that is too strong an expression. I should have said, rather, that we fill up the blanks."
"I had always understood that the Prime Minister drew up the Lists before submitting them to Her Majesty."
"So he does--with our help. Oh, there is no secrecy about it!" said Mr. Robertson, in a tone almost rallying. "The public is free of all information, only it will not inquire. A little curiosity on its part would even save much unfortunate misunderstanding."
"In what way?"
"Well, the public reads of rewards (with which, by the way, I have nothing to do) conferred on really eminent men--Lord Roberts, for instance, or Sir Henry Irving, or Sir Joseph Lister. It then goes down the List and, finding a number of names of which it has never heard, complains that Her Majesty's favour has been bestowed on nonentities; whereas this is really the merit of the List, that they _are_ nonentities."
"I don't understand."
"Well, then, _they don't exist_."
"But surely--"
"My dear sir," said Mr. Robertson, still smiling, and handing me his copy of _The Times_, "cast your eye down that column; take the names of the new knights--'Blain, Clarke, Edridge, Farrant, Laing, Laird, Wardle'--what strikes you as remarkable about them?"
"Why, that I have never heard of any of them."
"Naturally, for there are no such people. I made them up; and a good average lot they are, though perhaps the preponderance of monosyllables is a little too obvious."
"But see here. I read that 'Mr. Thomas Wardle is a silk merchant of Staffordshire.'"
"But I assure you that I took him out of _Pickwick_."
"Yes, but here is 'William Laird,' for instance. I hear that already two actual William Lairds--one of Birkenhead, the other of Glasgow-- are convinced that the honour belongs to them."
"No doubt they will be round in a day or two. The Heralds' College will refer them to me--not simultaneously, if I may trust Sir Albert Woods's tact--and I shall tell them that it belongs to neither, but to another William Laird altogether. But, if you doubt, take the Indian promotions. Lord Salisbury sometimes adds a name or two after I send in the List, and--well, you know his lordship is not fond of the dark races and has a somewhat caustic humour. Look at the new C.I.E.'s: 'Rai Bahadur Pandit Bhag Rum.' Does it occur to you that a person of that name really exists? 'Khan Bahadur Naoraji ('Naoraji,' mark you) Pestonji Vakil'--it's the language of extravaganza! The Marquis goes too far: it spoils all verisimilitude."
Mr. Robertson grew quite ruffled.
"Then you pride yourself on verisimilitude?" I suggested.
"As I think you may guess; and we spare no pains to attain it, whether in the names or In the descriptions supplied to the newspapers. 'William Arbuthnot Blain, Esq.'--you have heard of Balzac's scouring Paris for a name for one of his characters. I assure you I scoured England for William Arbuthnot Blain--'identified with the movement for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes'--or is that Richard Farrant, Esq.? In any case, what more likely, on the face of it? 'Frederick Wills, Esq., of the well-known tobacco firm of Bristol'--the public swallows that readily: and yet it never buys a packet of their Westward Ho! Mixture (which I smoke myself) without reading that the Wills's of Bristol are W. D. and H. O.--no Frederick at all."
"But," I urged, "the purpose of this--"
"I should have thought it obvious; but let me give you the history of it. The practice began with William III. He was justly scornful of the lax distribution of honours which had marked all the Stuart reigns. You will hardly believe it, but before 1688 knighthoods, and even peerages, went as often as not to men who qualified by an opportune loan to the Exchequer, or even by presiding at a public feast. (I say nothing of baronetcies, for their history is notorious.) At first William was for making a clean sweep of the Honours' List, or limiting it to two or three well-approved recipients. But it was argued that this seeming niggardliness might injure His Majesty's popularity, never quite secure. The Scutorium found a way out of the dilemma. Sir Crofton Byng, the then Clerk of the Ribands, proposed the scheme, which has worked ever since. I may tell you that the undue _largesse_ of honours finds in the very highest quarters as little favour as ever it did. Of course, there are some whose services to science, literature, and art cannot be ignored--the late Lord Leighton, for instance, or Sir George Newnes, or Sir Joseph Lister again; and these are honoured, while the public acclaims. But the rest are represented only in my collection of masks--and an interesting one it is. Let me lead the way."
But I have left myself no space for describing the treasures of the Scutorium. The two upper stories are undoubtedly the least interesting, since they contain the modern, unpainted masks. Each mask has its place, its label, and on the shelf below it, protected by a slip of glass, a description of the imaginary recipient of the royal favour. One has only to look along the crowded shelves to be convinced that Mr. Melville Robertson's office is no sinecure. The first floor is devoted to a small working library and a museum (the latter undergoing rearrangement at the time of my visit). But the cellars!--or (as I should say) the crypt! In Beaumont's words--
"Here's a world of pomp and state
Buried in dust, once dead by fate!"
Here in their native colours, by the light of Mr. Robertson's duplex lantern, stare the faces of the illustrious dead, from Rinaldus FitzTurold, knighted on Senlac field, to stout old Crosby Martin, sea-rover, who received the accolade (we'll hope he deserved it) from the Virgin Queen in 1586. A few even are adorned with side-locks, which Mr. Pender, the _nomenclator_, keeps scrupulously dusted. In almost every case the wax has withstood the tooth of time far better than one could have expected. Mr. Robertson believes that the pigments chosen must have had some preservative virtue. If so, the secret has been lost. But Mr. Pender has touched over some of the worst decayed with a mixture of copal and pure alcohol, by which he hopes at least to arrest the mischief; and certainly the masks in the Scutorium compare very favourably with the waxen effigies of our royalties preserved in the Abbey, close by. Mr. Robertson has a theory that these, too, should by rights belong to his museum: but that is another story, and a long one. Suffice it to say that I took my leave with the feelings of one who has spent a profitable afternoon: and for further information concerning this most interesting nook of old London I can only refer the reader to the pamphlet already alluded to, _The Westminster Scutorium: Its History and Present Uses_. By J. Saxby Hine, C.B., F.S.A. Theobald & Son, Skewers Alley, Chancery Lane, E.C. This article appeared to my beloved editor innocent enough to pass, and to me (as doubtless to the reader) harmless enough in all conscience. Now listen to the sequel.
Long afterwards an acquaintance of mine--a barrister with antiquarian tastes--was dining with me in my Cornish home, and the talk after dinner fell upon the weekly papers and reviews. On _The Speaker_ he touched with a reticence which I set down at first to dislike for his politics. By and by, however, he let slip the word "untrustworthy."
"Holding your view of its opinions," I suggested, "you might fairly say 'misleading.' 'Untrustworthy' is surely too strong a word."
"I am not talking," said he, "of its opinions, but of its mis-statements of fact. Some time ago it printed an article on a place which it called 'The Westminster Scutorium,' and described in detail. I happened to pick the paper up at my club and read the article. It contained a heap of historical information on the forms and ceremonies which accompany the granting of titles, and was apparently the work of a specialist. Being interested (as you know) in these matters, and having an hour to spare, I took a hansom down to Westminster. At the entrance of Dean's Yard I found a policeman, and inquired the way to the Scutorium. He eyed me for a moment, then he said, 'Well, I thought I'd seen the last of 'em. You're the first to-day, so far; and yesterday there was only five. But Monday--_and_ Tuesday--_and_ Wednesday! There must have been thirty came as late as Wednesday; though by that time I'd found out what was the matter. All Monday they kept me hunting round and round the yard, following like a pack. Very respectable-looking old gentlemen, too, the whole of 'em, else I should have guessed they were pulling my leg. Most of 'em had copies of a paper, _The Speaker_, and read out bits from it, and insisted on my searching in this direction and that . . . and me being new to this beat, and seeing it all in print! We called in the postman to help. By and by they began to compare notes, and found they'd been kidded, and some of 'em used language. . . . I really think, sir, you must be the last of 'em.'" _