Wilde, the last time I saw him, was got up like a low-comedy caricature of a Tom and Jerry “Corinthian.” That day he was minded to be Georgian, and was swaggering in the King’s Road dressed in a brown frogged coat, trimmed with cheap fur; on his head was an extravagant hat with a brim as much curled as the roof of a Chinese pagoda; the size and flatness of his huge splay feet were accentuated by being forced out of a pair of tight trousers carefully strapped over a pair of aggressively varnished boots; Whistler might be vain, but it was the vanity of Puck. The other man was Caliban. When Whistler made his famous answer, “Why drag in Velasquez?” he was in his sly way laughing at himself, just as he was full of malicious fun when on somebody praising Leighton’s versatility as musician, linguist, orator and what not, he said, “Paints a little too sometimes, don’t he?” How came so bright an elf, so gay, so mischievous, into the world? He must have been a changeling brought by some wanton sprite straight from the realm of King Oberon. Lindsey Row, with all its traditions, soon became absorbed into Cheyne Walk, and the very name would have been forgotten and lost had I not had the audacity to call my two-fifths of the old building Lindsey House. A little further to the east, past the quaint old church so full of ancient monuments and thoughts that were sermons in themselves, was the home of Thomas Carlyle. He and his wife had been friends of my family and of my wife’s for many years, and when I went to live in Chelsea he sent to bid me go and see him. Having known him from childhood I was not afraid of him as most people were, though of Mrs. Carlyle I used to stand in considerable awe; but she had now been dead eight years, and the old wise man was always kind and gentle to me. So I often used to go and see him on Sunday afternoon when he sat in his dressing-gown in the little room at the back, smoking his long churchwarden, and he even allowed me to light a cigar—a rare privilege, I was told—for, as a rule, in that sanctum nobody might smoke but himself.