with feelings of pity that in his great excitement he had forgotten to extinguish his cigarette, an oversight that the Public was quick to pardon in the old gentleman. Not long ago, wishing to verify one or two facts for an article I was writing upon the life of the Early Victorian Era and knowing that Mr. Sala was out [of] town, I paid a visit to the little house in Tite Street. I found everything there neat and clean and, though, of course, very simple and unpretentious, bearing witness to womanly care and taste. As I was ushered into the little study, I fancied that I heard the quickly receding _frou-frou_ of tweed trousers, but my host I found reclining, hale and hearty, though a little dishevelled upon the sofa. With one hand, readjusting the nut-brown Georgian wig that he is accustomed to wear, he motioned me with a courteous gesture of the other to an armchair. The old gentleman was unaffectedly pleased to receive a visit from the outer world, for, though he is in most things “a praiser of past times,” yet he is always interested to hear oral news of the present, and many young poets can testify to the friendly interest in their future taken by a man who is himself contented to figure in their past. As it was, when I had enriched myself from the storehouse of his still unclouded memory, we fell to talking about things in general, and I was struck by the quaint humour which still pervades his talk as well as by the delightfully old-fashioned way in which he rolls out his well-rounded periods. Many a modern conversationalist, I thought, might do worse than take a hint or two from his style. Nor has he lost any of that old Irish readiness for which he was once famed. It is said that a dinner given once at which many were present, Mr. Whistler, then quite a young boy, perpetrated some daring epigram and Wilde, beaming kindly across the table, said, to encourage him, “How I wish I had said that!” Young impudence cried, “You will, Sir, you will.” “No. I won’t,” returned the elder man, quick as thought and young impudence relapsed into silence abashed. Since then, the old journalist has contracted a strange habit of chuckling to himself inordinately at whatever he says and to such a degree has this habit grown upon him that at the last dinner-party he ever attended it was decided that he had the rare faculty of keeping a whole table perfectly serious, whilst he himself was convulsed with laughter. I think, however, it is only one of the mannerisms of age and certainly I found him as amusing as ever he was and as prone to utter those bulls which are an Irishman’s privilege and are known in England by the rather pretentious name of paradox. One instance will suffice. After we had chatted together for a while somebody entered to say that an old lady had called for the character of her new page-boy and as my host with his passion for literary work seemed anxious to write it, I felt I had better take my leave. Just