But a courtlier host than that Frenchman never existed. He would entertain us royally at the old _Maison Dorée_ when we went to Paris though he ate but little himself and always preferred the humbler Café Duval; so little, in fact, was he in accord with most men of his nation upon the food question that, when Joe gave him the usual fish dinner at Greenwich, he was naturally dismayed at the explanation, after several courses had been passed by, of “_Mon ami, je ne mange jamais du poisson_.” _Art and Letters_, though an artistic was not a financial success, but it may have led to the one of his many adventures of which he was perhaps the most proud: the planning and editing, at the request of Messrs. Macmillan, of their beautiful magazine, the _English Illustrated_. He has spoken so well himself of his pleasant intercourse with the men who worked for him--struggling men in those days but known to fame since--that there is little left for me to record, save to note that among the many tributes from his many friends I prize not least those of his collaborators of that time, with the oft-repeated testimony to his having helped them to the first-rung on the ladder of success. Mr. Stanley Weyman, whose first book, _The House of the Wolf_, was published in those pages, comes first to my mind, and those who have read my husband’s _Eminent Victorians_ will recollect the striking proof of the accuracy of his critical faculty in the incident of Mr. Weyman’s bringing him two letters--written with an interval of many years--in which he criticized a play of that brilliant novelist’s in almost identical words, although the first letter was written openly to the author and the second--in forgetfulness of the fact--to a theatrical agent who had not divulged the playwright’s name. Robert Louis Stevenson was one of his cherished contributors, and I recall an angry rebuke from that great man to the Editor, who had dared to strike out a word in the title of one of his articles at the moment of going to press; it is pleasant to add that a placated and highly amused reply followed on Joe’s deft and short method of extricating himself from the position: “My dear Stevenson--You see, I knew that the extra word was a slip of the pen,” he wrote, “for I should as soon have expected you to talk of female bitches as of male dogs. Yours etc.”