Mr. Hammond was the Foreign Office; he kept all the strings in his own hands. Probably such a method would be impossible in these days; but at the time of which I am writing his colossal industry and retentive memory enabled him to direct, single-handed, the whole current work of the department. He was indispensable. Of course those matters in which the policy of the Cabinet were at stake were dealt with then, as now, by the Secretary of State. But it is no small tribute to the value set upon Mr. Hammond’s work by successive Foreign Ministers that no change of Government affected his position or lowered his authority. Mr. Hammond kept me with him for a few minutes, warning me that my work at first would be very dull, and then he sent me off, saying, “Remember that there are no secrets here; everybody is trusted, and you will find that nothing is hidden from you. But you must hold your tongue.” I cannot remember any violation of that rule until many years afterwards, when I had left the diplomatic service, and when a new system had been introduced—as I think, very unwisely; but I do remember once, when some twenty years later there had been a scandal in the _chancellerie_ of an embassy of another country, that one of the greatest European financiers said to me: “Well, there is one thing of which England may be proud: the English Foreign Office is the only one at which we have never been able to buy information.” That says something for the old system of nomination, though I quite admit that there ought to be a stiffish examination of the nominees of the Secretary of State; but subject to that condition, I think that Lord Clarendon was quite right when he told a Committee of the House of Commons that he would rather resign the seals of the Foreign Office than surrender the right of nomination to a vacant clerkship. I was told off for the Slave Trade or African department—the only one in which there was a vacancy, and there I remained for the first two years of my service. The presiding genius was one Dolly Oom, a great character. I do not suppose that he was more than fifty years of age, but he looked as old as a grasshopper. He was a great authority on dinners, and used to give very choice little parties in a tiny house in Duchess Street. In matters theatrical, especially in all that related to pantomimes, he was an expert, and he was a faithful member of the Old Stagers at Canterbury—not as an actor, but as the official apologist, and all sorts of excuses used to be invented for bringing him on to the stage in that capacity, when, he being a favourite of many years’ standing, his appearance, his faultless attire, his courtly bow, which it was whispered was a piece of royal heredity from Hanover, were received with thunderous applause. His bosom friend and the hero of his adoration was Charles Mathews the actor.