Naturally enough, my father began by demurring to this suggestion, saying that he could not apply _in forma pauperis_ for charity. But it was pointed out that he need do no such thing. "Go to Walker," it was said, "explain your difficulty, and offer him a note of hand or a draft on the _Illustrated_, and if desired half a dozen of us will back it." Some such plan having been decided on, we called upon Colonel Walker on the second or third day of our stay at Versailles. His full name was Charles Pyndar Beauchamp Walker. Born in 1817, he had seen no little service. He had acted as an _aide-de-camp_ to Lord Lucan in the Crimea, afterwards becoming Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Dragoon Guards. He was in India during the final operations for the suppression of the Mutiny, and subsequently in China during the Franco-British expedition to that country. During the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 he was attached as British Commissioner to the forces of the Crown Prince of Prussia, and witnessed the battle of Koeniggratz. He served in the same capacity during the Franco-German War, when he was at Weissenburg, Woerth, and Sedan. In later years he became a major-general, a lieutenant-general, a K.C.B., and Colonel of the 2nd Dragoon Guards; and from 1878 until his retirement in 1884 he acted as Inspector General of military education. I have set out those facts because I have no desire to minimise Walker's services and abilities. But I cannot help smiling at a sentence which I found in the account of him given in the "Dictionary of National Biography." It refers to his duties during the Franco-German War, and runs as follows: "The irritation of the Germans against England, and the number of roving Englishmen, made his duty not an easy one, but he was well qualified for it by his tact and geniality, and his action met with the full approval of the Government." The Government in question would have approved anything. But let that pass. We called on the colonel at about half-past eleven in the morning, and were shown into a large and comfortably furnished room, where decanters and cigars were prominently displayed on a central table. In ten minutes' time the colonel appeared, arrayed in a beautiful figured dressing-gown with a tasselled girdle. I knew that the British officer was fond of discarding his uniform, and I was well aware that French officers also did so when on furlough in Paris, but it gave my young mind quite a shock to see her Majesty's military representative with King William arrayed in a gaudy dressing-gown in the middle of the day. He seated himself, and querulously inquired of my father what his business was. It was told him very briefly. He frowned, hummed, hawed, threw himself back in his armchair, and curtly exclaimed, "I am not a money-lender!"