I can well remember my first meeting with Henry Labouchere. It was at a dinner party given by my friend Sir John R. Robinson, then and until quite lately manager of the London "Daily News." The dinner was given at the Reform Club, and took place, I think, some time before Labouchere's election for Northampton. I had never seen Labouchere before that time, and had somehow failed to learn his name before we sat down to dinner. We were not a large party, and the conversation was general. I was soon impressed by the vivid and unstrained humor of Labouchere's talk and by the peculiarity of his manner. He spoke his sentences in quiet, slow, and even languid tones; there was nothing whatever of the "agreeable rattle" in his demeanor; he had no appearance of any determination to be amusing, or even consciousness of any power to amuse. He always spoke without effort and with the air of one who would just as soon have remained silent if he did not happen to have something to say, and whatever he did say in his languorous tones was sure to hold the attention and to delight the humorous faculties of every listener. My curiosity was quickly aroused and promptly satisfied as to the identity of this delightful talker, and thus began my acquaintanceship with Labouchere, which has lasted ever since, and is, I hope, likely to last for some time longer. Labouchere is a wonderful teller of stories drawn from his various experiences in many parts of the world, and, unlike most other story-tellers, he is never heard to repeat an anecdote, unless when he was especially invited to do so for the benefit of some one who had not had an opportunity of hearing it before. If he were only a teller of good stories and an utterer of witty sayings, he would well deserve a place in the social history of England during our times; but Labouchere's skill as a talker is one of his least considerable claims upon public attention. Nature endowed Labouchere with what might be called a fighting spirit, and I believe that whenever he sees any particular cause or body of men apparently put under conditions of disadvantage, his first instinctive inclination is to make himself its advocate, so far at least as to insist that the cause or the men must have a fair hearing.