Mr. Walter was even more wonderful than Mr. Blades said he would be. His knowledge ranged over every branch of Art, and he was just as much at home in a Surrey-side theatre, laughing at a melodrama, as he was in the National Gallery among masterpieces of painting, or at St. James’ Hall listening to the thunderous intricacies of Wagnerian music. He understood nearly as much as Mr. Merridew about the stage, and was himself an accomplished histrion, well known to many professional actors. At Trafalgar Square there are, of course, great natural facilities for approaching the Strand; and Mr. Walter had availed himself of them, with a result that he knew the haunts of the sock and buskin as few knew them. In person he was of medium stature, with an eye wherein Momus had made his home. He extracted humour from everything, and his facial command was such that while his audience might be convulsed with merriment, not a muscle moved. Occasionally he and Mr. Bright would indulge in a war of wit across the floor of the house, as they say; and on these occasions it was utterly impossible for me to pursue my avocation of registering policies. Of Mr. Bewes I need only say that he was a silent and an obviously brainy man. He had a short black beard, a penetrating glance from behind his spectacles, and was a Roman Catholic. Of this important but secretive man I can mention one highly interesting fact. He never went out of doors for lunch, but descended to a lower chamber, where one might have a chop or steak, cooked by the Senior Messenger of the West-End Branch. Mr. Bewes always had a chop, except on Friday, when, being a staunch Catholic, he denied himself this trifling pleasure. But the extraordinary thing was that he never varied his lunch, or branched off in the direction of a steak or sausage. Thus he ate five chops every week, year after year, excepting when away for his holidays, when, of course, the staff did not know what he ate. For fifty weeks in the year he persisted in this course, with a result that the simplest statistics will show he ate two hundred and fifty chops per annum. A further calculation was also possible, which produced even more remarkable results, for it transpired that Mr. Bewes had been in the Apollo Fire Office for forty-eight years, and had persisted in his regular habits within the memory of man. Therefore, it followed that during his official career he had devoured no less than twelve thousand chops! One might work this out in sheep, and doubtless find that Mr. Bewes had consumed a very considerable flock in his time. His health was good, and his memory unimpaired; but he was now nearly seventy years of age, and proposed retiring on a pension fairly soon. It gave one a good idea of the age and solidity of the Apollo, when one heard of a life like this devoted to its service. In fact, in the words of the poet, it can truly be said that “men may come and men may go; but the Apollo goes on forever.”