A sportsman, too, for he was the friend of the late Duke of Atholl, spending most of his summer holiday at Blair, where he was always welcome as an enthusiastic stalker. Indeed, “Scrope’s Deerstalking” was the only book that I remember ever to have seen him read. I went to see him once as he lay in bed, very feeble, at the beginning of his last long illness. On the wall, at his right hand, was hanging his dearly-loved rifle, his powder-flask, and the other paraphernalia of those pre-breechloader days. In his youth he had been a great oarsman, and, indeed, the river was his joy till quite late in life. He took the greatest interest in all that concerned boating and swimming, and it was owing to his influence, in conjunction with that of the noble Bishop Selwyn, of whom Eton is still so proud, that the law was passed by the authorities forbidding boys to enter a boat until they should have “passed” in swimming. Of the good bishop a story is told of the time when he was a private tutor at Eton which is worth preserving. He was sculling in a wherry amid a crowd of boats, when he was run into by some unskilled oarsman. Seeing that shipwreck was inevitable, he stood up, and, quoting Ovid’s description of the discreet death of Lucretia, exclaimed: “Tunc quoque, jam moriens, ne non procumbat honeste Respicit, hoc etiam cura cadenti erat.” Fasti II., 831. And so, with a header as graceful as the quotation was apt, the amphibious bishop that was to be, dived into the Thames amid the plaudits of the multitude, who already recognized in him the heroism of which he was to give proof in New Zealand and elsewhere. Evans’ was a very happy house, and the good old man spared nothing for the comfort of his boys. The table which he kept was excellent, the Sunday dinner quite a little feast, with a glass of sherry for each boy at plum-pudding time—not altogether wise we should perhaps think nowadays, but so kind and so hospitable. Rarely, too, would be fail to invite one or two boys to stay for dessert. The traditions of the house were nobly carried on by Miss Jennie Evans after her father’s death in 1877. And now she, too, has disappeared, the last of the dames, the last of one of those dear old institutions which were part of the mystery of Eton. To remember is to wander, and when I begin to think of Eton—the Eton of seventy years ago—it is easier to ramble on than prudently to stop. But to-day I have only to deal with “Verba Composita.” It is of them that I was thinking this morning as I sat in my Veluvana, and, indeed, there could hardly be a more pregnant thought than that of the talk of friends in council.