It was from Venables that I heard a delightful story about our host which, years afterwards, I repeated in writing Lord Houghton's life. It was the story of Carlyle's remark when Tennyson's friends were trying to procure a pension for him from Sir Robert Peel. "Richard Milnes," said Carlyle, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "when are ye gaun to get that pension for Alfred Tennyson?" Milnes tried to explain to Carlyle that there were difficulties in the way, and that possibly his constituents, who knew nothing about Tennyson, might accuse him of being concerned in a job if he were to succeed in getting the desired pension for the poet. "Richard Milnes," replied the sage, "on the Day of Judgment, when the Lord asks ye why ye didna get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it'll no do to lay the blame on your constituents. It's _you_ that'll be damned." I always had a half impression that, for some reason or other, Lord Houghton did not like to hear that story told in his presence. All the world knows, of course, that he did get the pension for the poet, and thus escaped the penalty anticipated by the philosopher. But if Lord Houghton was sensitive on some points, he was frank and courageous in acknowledging his own youthful follies and the punishment which they brought upon him. I shall never forget his taking me to a particular corner in that vast library at Fryston--which, like some vegetable parasite, seemed to have spread itself over every inch of available wall-space in the house--and taking down from the shelves a volume of the "Life of Sydney Smith." His object in doing so was to show me the original manuscript of the pungent and witty letter in which Sydney Smith rebuked him sharply for having written a somewhat peppery note to ask the Canon if it was true that he had dubbed him "the cool of the evening." "What a young fool I was!" said Lord Houghton, when he had read the letter to me. "And how good it was of Sydney Smith to set me down in that fashion!"