He spoke disparagingly of his novels, though admitting that there were chapters in them that he had enjoyed writing. We were walking round the garden, and Hardy paused at a spot near the greenhouse. He said that he had once been pruning a tree here when an idea suddenly had come into his head for a story, the best story that he had ever thought of. It came complete with characters, setting, and even some of the dialogue. But as he had no pencil and paper with him, and was anxious to finish pruning the tree before it rained, he had let it go. By the time he sat down to recall it, all was utterly gone. ‘Always carry a pencil and paper,’ he said. He added: ‘Of course, even if I could remember that story now, I couldn’t write it. I am past novel-writing. But I often wonder what it was.’ At dinner that night he grew enthusiastic in praise of cider, which he had drunk since a boy, and which, he said, was the finest medicine he knew. I suggested that in the _Message to the American People_, which he had been asked to write, he might take the opportunity of recommending cider. He began complaining of autograph-hunters and their persistence. He disliked leaving letters unanswered, and yet if he did not write these people pestered him the more; he had been upset that morning by a letter from an autograph-fiend which began: Dear Mr. Hardy,—I am interested to know why the devil you don’t reply to my request.... He asked me for my advice, and was grateful for the suggestion that a mythical secretary should reply offering his autograph at one or two guineas, the amount to be sent to a hospital (‘Swanage Children’s Hospital,’ put in Hardy), which would forward a receipt.