I can see the pretty little plate of chives and other chopped herbs, with yoke and white of hard-boiled mashed egg, that our French _bourgeoise_ cook would send up ready for his meticulous choice in the mixing of either a Russian or a lettuce salad: “a niggard of vinegar, a spendthrift of oil, and a maniac at mixing,” was the old adage he went by. Our cooks were always as proud as I was to try and follow out his ideas, and we were invariably praised for success: I remember an occasion when the confused damsel--partly because she happened to be very pretty--was summoned to the dining-room to receive her meed; and when it was blame, I caught the brunt of it and mitigated the dose downstairs. But as it was always in the form of fun I never minded; I was always proud to be the butt of it. Sometimes I scored, as when the dessert came at that first party, and he said, offering a dish of sweets to his neighbour: “Try a preserved fruit; they’ve stood the move from Bloomsbury wonderfully well,” and I was able to produce the freshly opened box, just arrived from a choice foreign firm, and prove my hospitality to be less stinted. I had my partisans in those days. Pellegrini, the _Vanity Fair_ caricaturist, was one of them. I hailed from his own country, and I can hear him say: “Never minder Joe! You and I we ’ave de sun in de eyes.” And then we would discuss the proper condiment for _maccaroni_, and next time he came he would bring it ready cooked in a fireproof dish, tenderly carried on his lap in the hansom, which he insisted upon placing on the proper spot of the kitchen stove to warm: on such nights, he ate little of our British fare. My husband and he were fast friends nevertheless. If Joe had not “de sun in de eyes” he had it in the heart, and Pellegrini adored him, even going so far once as to break his oath never to sleep out of his own lodgings, that he might visit us at a cottage on the Thames, where--although he allowed that the moon “she is a beauty”--he used cold cream and kid gloves to counteract the ill-effects of hard water, and sat up all night rather than retire to a strange bed. Several tales of this lovable and laughable character are told in _Eminent Victorians_, most of them referring to those happy little homely dinner parties where Joe shone so pleasantly, and which his friends not only graced with their presence, but even sometimes contributed to by little kindly presentations of delicacies. Perhaps few have received as much kindness as Joe did, and though always grateful, he was never overwhelmed. Of the pride which resents gifts he had none. “I wouldn’t take a jot from any but a friend,” he would say. “But if a friend, who has more than I, likes to share it with me, why should I refuse? I would do the same for him. I have no money, but I give him what I possess.”