A curious incident happened to me in connection with this paper. The Hon. Mrs. Whyte-Melville, widow of the novelist, had engaged as her private chaplain a wild Irish divine known as the Rev. Peter Higginson. Peter had been chaplain to Bishop Colenso, and his native impetuosity had been increased on the African veldt. Now, a paragraph had appeared in Alison’s paper in which it was stated, as a matter of gossip, that Whyte-Melville’s favourite cob, which had been provided an old age of ease by the deceased gentleman’s will, was being daily galloped about the Thames Valley by a mad clergyman with a big red beard. A day or two after the appearance of the paragraph a gentleman answering the description of the person mentioned in connection with Whyte-Melville’s cob, entered my room unannounced. He threw a copy of the paper containing the note on the table at which I was sitting. “That manes me, an’ you wrote it!” he said. I asked him to be so good as to remove his hat and take a seat. He complied growling, and blushing, I thought, on his cheek-bones. “Now, perhaps,” I suggested suavely, “you will tell me who you are and how you got in here.” “I’m the Rivirind Pether Higginson,” he answered, in a more chastened spirit, “an’ I gev your boy five shilluns to let me in.” I rang the bell. My unfortunate clerk entered. “You’ve got five shillings belonging to this gentleman. Give them back to him.” Greatly resenting the order, the boy complied. “Now show the gentleman out!” I continued. A letter from Peter received a month after assured me that he had discovered the writer of the offensive note, that he greatly regretted his intrusion, and that he would esteem it as a great favour if I would lunch with him on the following day at Simpson’s in the Strand. I went, and had a most amusing time listening to his gasconading. He married the widow for the repose of whose husband’s soul he had been engaged to pray, and I became an occasional visitor at their house at St. Margaret’s-on-Thames. Peter’s solicitude for my welfare was quaintly evinced on the first occasion of my dining with the newly-married couple. Just before going into the dining-room he whispered solemnly in my ear: “Don’t dhrink the clar’t: it’s muck!”