This went on for nearly an hour and was very pleasant to listen to, but most disappointing to a young man who had come well primed with facts to meet all these arguments, and who tried in vain to find a chance to put in a single word. At the end of this so-called conversation Macaulay thanked me for the useful information I had given him, and I went back to Oxford a sadder and I hope a wiser man. What I had chiefly wished to impress on him was that Haileybury should not be suppressed, but should be improved, should not be ended, but mended. But it was easier and more popular to suppress it, and suppressed it was, so that in England, which has the largest Oriental Empire in the world, there is now not a single school or seminary for the teaching of Oriental languages, whereas France, Italy, Prussia, Austria and Russia have all found it expedient to have such establishments and to support them by liberal grants. Everybody now begins to see that these governments are reaping their rewards, but in England the old argument remains the same: “We can always find interpreters if we pay them well, and if we only speak loud enough the natives never fail to understand what we mean.” This is no doubt much the same as what Mr. Layard meant when he explained to me how he managed to keep his diggers in order: “I speak English to them; if they do not understand I shout at them,” he said; “if they won’t obey, I knock them down; and if they show fight, I shoot them down.” No doubt this was an exaggeration, but it certainly does not prove the uselessness of a thorough knowledge of Oriental languages for those who are sent to the East to govern millions, and not to shout at them, or to knock them down. Another true friend of mine was Arthur Helps, the author of “Friends in Council,” and for a long time clerk to the Privy Council. He often paid us a visit on his way to or from Blenheim, where he used to stay with the then Duke of Marlborough. He had a very high opinion of the Duke’s ability as President of the Council, and considered his personal influence most important. “At the time of a change of Ministry, you should see the members of the Cabinet,” he said. “People imagine they are miserable and disheartened. The fact is they are like a pack of schoolboys going home for their holidays, and scrambling out of the Council Chamber as fast as ever they can.” Once when he came to stay with us on his return from Blenheim, he told me how the Duke had left the day before for London, and that on that very day the emu had laid an egg. The Duke had taken the greatest interest in his emus and had long looked forward to this event. A telegram was sent to the Duke, which, when shown to Mr. Helps, ran as follows: “The emu has laid an egg, and, in the absence of your Grace, we have taken the largest goose we could find to hatch it.”