[5] The word Glenelg is, of course, a palindrome, reading backwards and forwards alike. [6] Randolph Churchill, Joseph Chamberlain, and Arthur Balfour were only a few among the political magnates who had enjoyed my brother-in-law's hospitality in the fine old Georgian mansion where Lord Hailes had entertained Dr. Johnson. Newhailes was, of course, a very convenient "jumping-off" place for meetings in the Scottish metropolis. [7] About as good, perhaps, as a certain English nine-hole course over which the secretary invited (partly by way of advertising his club) a famous golfer to play. "Well, what do you think of our course?" asked the secretary with some trepidation when the game was over. "Oh well, it might be worse," was the great man's answer. "How do you mean exactly, might be worse?" "Well," said the eminent golfer, "there might be eighteen holes!" [8] That of Alister Gordon, of the Gordon Highlanders, to a sister of Charles Edmonstoune-Cranstoun, an old pupil of mine. The bridegroom was a fine soldier, became Brigadier-General in the European War, and fell gallantly at Ypres in July, 1917. [9] My well-informed friend told me, if I remember right, that statutes having been passed in more recent times, limiting the grant of patents to actual new inventions, scientific or otherwise, nothing so amusing as the instances he quoted were to be found in their modern records. [10] Not more gruesome, perhaps, than an exhibition organized at Stafford House, in my young days about London, by Anne Duchess of Sutherland, of _wicker-work coffins_. They were spread about the garden, where tea was likewise provided; and a dapper and smiling young man (I suppose the patentee) was in attendance to point out the advantages--sanitary, economic, and æsthetic--of his invention to the Duchess's interested guests. [11] I could not claim the concession (I believe unique) granted to an old Captain De Moleyns, who lived--and died--close to Christ Church, and during whose last days the immemorial ringing of "Tom" was suspended. He was a man of very advanced age, and used to tell how as a little boy he was rowed across Plymouth Harbour to see Napoleon standing on the deck of the _Bellerophon_! {113} CHAPTER VII 1908