It fell to my lot to interview him on two or three occasions. I did not wish to do so, but there were requests from headquarters. Each time he sang the old songs. The interview that you had with him one week would do for another, with the change of a few words. He really liked to talk. He pretended that he disliked being interviewed on political subjects, but that was mere mock-modesty. He spoke English well enough. In fact, he had been a schoolboy at Brighton, and he had represented France at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. He was merely "layin' low" that day in Paris, like Brer Fox, only he was not Brer Fox, his one desire being not to have anything said or done on the twenty-seventh of January that would give the Government an excuse for a raid on his designs. I think he was rather a pitiable object. Few others thought so before the twenty-eighth of January, 1889. He was merely a mechanism for the issue of {274} promissory notes. It was about two years after his arrival in London that he committed suicide on the continent. How well he illustrated Lincoln's saying about "fooling the people"! But he did not fool himself. He was the tool of more designing persons. "_C'est une chose faite._" {277} INDEX Aberdeen University, 85 Acting, art of, 187, 188, 191 Admiralty, the, 11 Agassiz, Mrs., 128 _Alaska_ (steamer), 6 Albert Hall, 16 Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, anecdote of, 227-228; on Tennyson Memorial committee, 128 Aldworth, summer home of Tennyson, 125, 126 Aldwych, 11 Alhambra (music hall), 16 Alma-Tadema, Sir Laurens, 45, 52 _Alsatia_ (Anchor Line steamer), 1; description of, 3-4 "Altavona" (by Blackie), 87 Amiens, 24; cathedral of, 20 Anecdotes of Aldrich, 227-228; of Drummond, 181-182; of Gladstone, 232-233; of Tennyson, 121, 122-123, 129-130, 134, 136; of Whistler, 157-160, 162, 163, 164, 166-167 _Antiquary_ (magazine), 133 Architecture of London, 10-13 _Arizona_ (Guion Line steamer), 6, 39 Arnold, Sir Edwin, quoted, 124 Artistic sensibilities, author's comment on, 237-238 Atelier Gleyre, Paris, 45 Bancrofts, The, 16, 53, 186 Barbour, Robert W., description of Professor Blackie, 92-95 Barrie, Sir James, 17 Beaconsfield, Lord, quoted, 142 Bell, Alexander Graham, brings telephone instruments to Europe, 106 Besant, Sir Walter, 17 Betterton, fame of, 185 Bismarck, 139 Black, William, 17, 53 Blackie, John Stuart, 79-95; ancestry and early life, 84-85; as a teacher, 85-86, 90; Barbour's word picture of, 92-95; comments on pictures in home, 88-89; compiles anthology of Scottish songs, 87; conversation of, 83-84; description of, 79-80, 81, 91; endows a professorship at Edinburgh, 87; home of, 87; lecture in Glasgow, 91; lecturer in Scotland, 86; love for Greek, 82, 90; novel by, 87; patriotism of, 87; portraits of, 88; quoted, 79-80, 81, 82-83, 84, 85, 86-87, 89, 90, 91, 95; study of, 90; works of, 86-87 Blackwood, 53 Booth, Edwin, 186; art of, 192