[1] Once quite unjustly--but that was not his fault, for he acted only on "information received." This reminds me of Mr. Gladstone's story of his schoolfellow Arthur Hallam (of _In Memoriam_ fame). "Hallam," said W. E. G., indulging in some Etonian reminiscences at his own table when not far off ninety, "was a singularly virtuous boy; but he was once flogged by Dr. Keat, though quite unjustly. When we came into school one day, the master, Mr. Knapp--("He was a sad scoundrel, and got into prison later," the old gentleman added in parenthesis, "and I subscribed to relieve his necessities"),--said at once, 'Præpostor, put Hallam's name in the bill for breaking my window.'--'Please, sir, I never broke any window of yours,' cried Hallam, starting up. 'Præpostor,' said Mr. Knapp, 'put Hallam's name in the bill for lying, and breaking my window.'--'Upon my sacred word of honour, sir,' said Hallam, jumping up again, 'I never touched your window.' But Mr. Knapp merely said, 'Præpostor, put Hallam's name in the bill for swearing, and lying, and breaking my window!' [2] _Tom Brown's School Days_ (ed. 1839), pp. 370, 371. [3] Replaced in 1920 by a new and sonorous peal. They still struck the quarters! but anyhow in tune. [4] "Were the Vanderbilts as great a power in the American railway and financial world in your time as they are now?" some one asked an Englishman who had at one time spent some years in the United States. "No," he replied; "I think when I was out there they were only Vanderbuilding!" [5] His quiet sojourn at St. James's, which he had himself built and inaugurated five years previously, was a sadly short one. I heard with deep regret of his death there on St. Benedict's, Day (March 21) of this year, 1910. [6] See _ante_, page 130, _note_. [7] This straining of the sight precipitated, I think, the affection of the eyes which was to prove so troublesome. [8] Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, chap. ix. [9] "La crême de la guillotine," as our Parisian monk, Dom Denis, described them. [10] The O'Sullivan Beare, a graduate of Dublin University, had had an interesting career. He had served in the Egyptian War of 1885, had been medical officer on the Gold Coast and at Zanzibar, a Vice-consul in East Africa, engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, and later Consul at Bahia and S. Paulo. He was Consul-general at Rio de Janeiro during a great part of the European War. Col. O'Sullivan Beare died in 1921. [11] See, however, _post_, page 202. {189} CHAPTER XI 1910-1911