a river steamer captain puts his vessel alongside. What fine horses and fine harness! Coachman, copper-coloured by the sun and the dusty roads of Dorking, flings down his reins and strides in, as if every second was precious, to keep some appointment in the office. The metal ladder is put up, the ladies assisted down. It has been a delicious day among the velvet greens of Dorking.[5] The large detached building near St. James’s Hall, erst the shop of Attenborough--name of good and evil omen to many--had become a haunt for exhibitions. The first was in the “old days,” that is what time the wonderful Sarah brought over all her models and pictures, and with a pleasing, harmless vanity exhibited them. The scene of her first reception there comes back on us--the wiry creature, leaning on her crutch stick, flanked by a certain lad, receiving the company. The curious specimen of the Parisian confidential man-servant--exactly like those on the stage--who took the tickets--was interesting in his way. He gave the idea that he knew secrets, and, better still, could be trusted with them. The motley nature of the crowds was also amusing; consisting of “swells,” artists, press, all in a jumble. Not undramatic was the meeting of the tall German Ambassador and the diva. There was a theatrical trickiness in the show, though there were one or two works at the most that were of extraordinary merit--the Drowned Boy, and the heads of Girardin and Busnach. On a balmy morning there is nothing more agreeable than a walk in the Green Park, and the happy mortals, or immortals, who own the houses that look into it--Salisburys, Ellesmeres, Spencers, _e tutti quanti_--may be envied as you walk. There are a few trees, and there are generally some lazy mortals seated on the green chairs under their shade, and perhaps sleeping. We look up at the house that seems all bow-window, and call up “old Rogers,” who was there but yesterday, with his breakfasts, his exquisitely choice pictures, his epicurean tastes, his social life, which he may be said to have created, and his stories, which in his old age and decay he used to repeat in a strange formal way, and always in the same words.[6] After his death, when he was an enormous age, he was of course speedily forgotten; his treasures, more speedily still, were sold by auction, with his elegant house. Nothing more piteous can be conceived than the closing years of a veteran breakfast giver. Crabb Robinson describes his final efforts in this line with a sort of dismal but doubting satisfaction. The _rôle_ of professional breakfast and dinner giver--_i.e._, of one who wishes to have a reputation for these things--must be an unsatisfactory one, and bring but poor return. It is ever recurring, and the thing has to be done over again; for, alas! nothing is so true as that _the stomach has no memory_.