and it came to pass that at sixty-one I exchanged my busy life for a life of comparative ease. And this is how it came about. A vacancy on the Board of Directors unexpectedly occurred in October, 1912, while I was in Paris on my way home from a holiday in Switzerland and Italy. I there received a letter informing me that the Board would offer me the vacant seat if it really was my wish to retire so soon. Not a moment did I hesitate. Such an opportunity might never come again; so like a prudent man, I "grasped the skirts of happy chance," and the 5th day of November, 1912, saw me duly installed as a Director of the Company which I had served as Manager for close upon twenty-two years. It was an early age, perhaps, to retire from that active life to which I had been accustomed, but as Doctor Johnson says, "No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have a part of his life to himself." I made the plunge and have never since regretted it. It has given me more leisure for pursuits I love, and time has never hung heavy on my hands. On the contrary, I have found the days and hours all too short. Coincident with this change came a piece of good fortune of which I could not have availed myself had not this alteration in my circumstances taken place. Whilst in Paris I heard that Mr. Lewis Harcourt (now Viscount Harcourt), then Colonial Secretary, had expressed a wish to see me as I passed through London, and on the 28th of October, I had an interview with him at his office in the House of Commons. There was a vacancy, he informed me, on the recently appointed Dominions' Royal Commission, occasioned by the resignation of Sir Charles Owens, late General Manager of the London and South-Western Railway, and a railway man was wanted to fill his place. I had been mentioned to him; would I accept the position? It involved, he said, a good deal of work and much travelling--voyages to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and Newfoundland. Two years, he expected, would enable the whole of the work to be done, and about twelve months' absence from England, perhaps rather more, but not in continuous months, would be necessary. It was a great honor to be asked, and I had no hesitation in telling him that as I was on the eve of being freed from regular active work, I would be more than happy to undertake the duty, but--"But what?" he inquired. I was but very recently married, I said, and how could I leave my wife to go to the other side of the globe alone? No need to do that, said he; your wife can accompany you; other ladies are going too. Then I gratefully accepted the offer, and with high delight, for would I not see more of the great world, and accomplish useful public work at the same time. Duty and pleasure would go hand in hand. I need not hide the fact that it was one of my then Directors, now my colleague, and always my friend, Sir Walter Nugent, Baronet (then a Member of Parliament), who, having been