With the advent of the house-boat an era of greater luxuriousness was inaugurated. At first the house-boat was a floating structure of small proportions and humble pretensions—the home of some artist or some devoted lover of the Thames who had become tired of camping out. But the possibilities of the thing were soon gauged by those to whom money was not very much of an object. The first of the house-boats on a really large and luxurious scale was built for Mr. O’Hagan of Hampton by Tom Tagg. Once the game was started, it went on merrily, and continueth even unto this day, although the motor has diverted many of the wealthy from a pastime which, from one point of view at least, must be regarded as “slow.” Colonel North, the Nitrate King, as they called him in the City, set up a house-boat on a grand scale. He called her _The Golden Butterfly_, and on board this gorgeous floating pleasure-house he gave princely entertainments to the ornaments of the stage and his City friends. John L. Shine, the actor, had gained the good graces of the egregious Nitrate King—who, while recklessly hospitable, was hopelessly vulgar—and he did a lot of the inviting for the florid and red-whiskered magnate. Where City men of the “Woolpack” type, ladies of the theatre, unlimited champagne, and a host free of any bigoted regard for the _convenances_, are the chief elements of a gathering, the fun should have been fast and furious—as, indeed, it sometimes was. William Hudson, the wine-merchant, had a house-boat right away from the more crowded reaches of the Thames. She lay off the Mapledurham meadows, belonging to the Blount family. Hudson’s boat was called _The Little Billee_, and he kept moored near by an excellent steam-launch, the _Martlet_, and a whole flotilla of skiffs, punts, and canoes for the use of his visitors. In the internal fittings of the _Little Billee_ Hudson went in not so much for airy grace as for solid comfort. And no man on all the Thames gave better weekend dinners. He liked to have around him guests who could talk, and who could talk well. All sorts and conditions of people met at his board, but one never met there a man who was not interesting. Travellers, authors, journalists, merchants, Conservative Members of Parliament, and Irish Nationalist Members of the same august assembly, I have met at Hudson’s week-end parties on the _Little Billee_. And if the after-dinner talk was always kept up to the right conversational pitch, much of the credit was due to the keenness and tact of a host who delighted in the conversational “give and take” of clever men.