But it was not at such functions that his real character displayed itself. This only came out in intercourse of a much more private kind, as would happen at Strathfieldsaye when he entertained parties of not more than ten people. When I was present on such occasions I was usually the youngest--by far the youngest--member of the company. Of the rest I may mention as examples Lady Dorothy Nevill, Alfred Montgomery, Sir Hastings Doyle, Lord Calthorpe, Sir St. George Foley, Lady Chesterfield, and Mr. Newtons, the courtly police magistrate, called by his friends "The Beak." And here--to repeat in substance the observation which I have made already--what always struck me was the far greater polish of manner that prevailed among these my elders than any which was cultivated among my own, the then rising, generation. In such an atmosphere the Duke's special gifts were at home. He never strained after effect. His words seemed to crystallize into wit or poignant humor before he had time to reflect on what he was going to say. But these qualities were perhaps seen at their best in tete-a-tete encounters or correspondence. At all events, it is from such occurrences that illustrations of them can be most readily drawn. He had often spoken to me of his dislike of anything in the nature of jobbery, and this was once brought out in a very characteristic way by a passage at arms between himself and Lady St. Helier. Lady St. Helier had written to him to ask him if, as Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, he would make one of her friends a magistrate. The duke promptly replied that her friend was an entire stranger to him, and that he never made appointments of that kind as a favor to some third party. There the matter rested for a week or two, at the end of which period she received the following note from him: DEAR LADY ST. HELIER. You have treated me extremely ill. I have made inquiries about your friend, and I find he is part-proprietor of--here he named a certain place of amusement--which I learn is frequently used as a place for assignations of a very reprehensible kind. Lady St. Helier's immediate reply was this: MY DEAR DUKE. I have nothing more to say. You are acquainted with such matters so much better than I am. Not long afterward he met her on somebody's doorstep, and she, who was taking her departure, greeted him with some slight frigidity. He merely looked at her with a momentary twinkle in his eye, and said, "I think you had me there." Some days later she received yet another letter from him, which consisted of these words: DEAR LADY ST. HELIER. The deed is done. God forgive me.