Brofft's Hotel was at that time the chief place of entertainment in Bucharest. The principal bedrooms were occupied by ladies who purported to be the wives of the leading Russian officers, but about whom there was a strong smack of the boulevards. In the restaurant the officers themselves dined and drank freely at numberless small tables, Roumanians and Russians taking care to keep apart from each other. You could dine very well at Brofft's, but you had to pay for your dinner at a rate which cast into the shade the highest charges of Paris or Vienna. It was here that I had experience of an amusing piece of effrontery on the part of the proprietor. On our first evening in Bucharest my two friends and I--for Mr. Greig had been joined by another member of his firm--dined very well, but we were somewhat startled when we had to pay the bill, which amounted to more than a pound a head. The next evening, determined to be economical, we ordered a very moderate repast. Whilst we were eating it, Brofft himself appeared at our table. "I am sorry you are having so poor a dinner to-night, gentlemen," he said. "I do hope you will let me add something to it, for, you know, the price will be the same, whatever you have." And, sure enough, we again had to pay more than a pound apiece for this very unsatisfactory dinner. After that experience, we always took care to order the rarest and most costly viands on the _carte du jour._ I made one interesting acquaintance at Bucharest. This was Mr. White, the English Consul. Few at that time anticipated that he was destined to rise to a height never before attained by a member of the Consular Service, and to end his career as Sir William White, her Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople. Yet all who are acquainted with the facts are aware that Sir William was better qualified than almost any other man for this high position, and that his death was nothing less than a national misfortune. At Bucharest in 1878 he was living in the simplest fashion in the rambling Consulate. When I first went to call upon him he himself opened the door in response to my knock. We had a long conversation upon Eastern politics, in the course of which he explained his own perfect knowledge of affairs in the Balkan Peninsula by telling me that he knew all the languages spoken in that part of the world, and was consequently able to study the local newspapers for himself. White was a big, powerful man, with an air of unpolished frankness and good-nature that seemed to belie his character as a diplomatist. His was one of the most interesting careers in the public service of this country. In diplomacy he climbed from the very bottom of the tree to the very top, and he did so without having any special personal influence. The Russians both hated him and feared him, and there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a game of diplomatic bowls with Prince Gortschakoff or his successor. Some years