Speaking of a statement that some one had invented armor which would ward off a rifle-ball, Sheridan said that during the Civil War an officer who wore a steel vest beneath his coat was driven out of decent society by general contempt; and at this Goldwin Smith told a story of the Duke of Wellington, who, when troubled by an inventor of armor, nearly scared him to death by ordering him to wear his own armor and allow a platoon of soldiers to fire at him. During the course of the conversation Sheridan said that soldiers were braver now than ever before--braver, indeed, than the crusaders, as was proved by the fact that in these days they wear no armor. To this Goldwin Smith answered that he thought war in the middle ages was more destructive than even in our time. Sheridan said that breech-loading rifles kill more than all the cannon. At a breakfast given by Goldwin Smith at Wormley's, Bancroft, speaking of Berlin matters, said that the Emperor William did not know that Germany was the second power in the world so far as a mercantile navy was concerned until he himself told him; and on the ignorance of monarchs regarding their own domains, Goldwin Smith said that Lord Malmesbury, when assured by Napoleon III that in the plebiscite he would have the vote of the army, which was five hundred thousand, answered, ``But, your majesty, your army numbers seven hundred thousand,'' whereupon the Emperor was silent. The in- ference was that his majesty knew a large part of his army to be merely on paper. At this Mr. John Field, of Philadelphia, said that on the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War he went to General Grant at Long Branch, and asked him how the war was likely to turn out, to which the general answered, ``As I am President of the United States, I am unable to answer.'' ``But,'' said Field, ``I am a citizen sovereign and ask an opinion.'' ``Well,'' said General Grant, ``confidentially, the Germans will beat the French thoroughly and march on Paris. The French army is a mere shell.'' This reminded me that General Grant, on my own visit to him some weeks before, had foretold to me sundry difficulties of Lord Wolseley in Egypt just as they afterward occurred.