I recall with delight first meeting my beloved old friend, Sir Henry Lucy; he had with him Sir F. C. Gould, who never did a better service to his country than when he portrayed me as an able seaman asking the Conscriptionists (in the person of Lord Roberts) whether there was no British Navy. The cartoon was reproduced in my “Memories” (p. 48). In my speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in 1907 (see Chapter VI of this volume) I had spoken of Sir Henry Lucy as “gulled by some Midshipman Easy of the Channel Fleet” (Sir Henry had been for a cruise in the Fleet), who stuffed him up that the German Army embarking in the German Fleet was going to invade England! And in the flippant manner that seems so to annoy people, I observed that Sir Henry might as well talk of embarking St. Paul’s Cathedral on board a penny steamer as of embarking the German Army in the German Fleet! He and Gould came up to me at a _séance_ on board the “Dreadnought,” and had a cup of tea as if I had been a lamb! On the occasion of that same speech, a Bishop looked very sternly at me, because in my speech, to show how if you keep on talking about war and always looking at it and thinking of it you bring it on, I instanced Eve, who kept on looking at the apple and at last she plucked it; and in the innocence of my heart I observed that had she not done so we should not have been now bothered with clothes. When I said this in my speech I was following the advice of one of the Sheriffs of the City of London, sitting next me at dinner, who told me to fix my eyes, while I was speaking, on the corner of the Ladies’ Gallery, as then everyone in the Guildhall could hear what I said. And such a lovely girl was in that corner, I never took my eyes off her, all the time, and that brought Eve into my mind! CHAPTER III THE BIBLE, AND OTHER REFLECTIONS I have just been listening to another very eloquent sermon from Dr. Hugh Black, whom I mention elsewhere in this book (see Chapter V). Nearly all these Presbyterians are eloquent, because they don’t write their sermons. The one slip our eloquent friend made in his sermon was in saying that the _A.D._ 1611 edition of the Bible (the Authorised Version) was a better version of the Bible than the Great Bible of _A.D._ 1539, which according to the front page is stated to be as follows:-- “The byble in English that is to say the content of all the Holy Scripture both of the old and new testament truly translated after the verity of the Hebrew and Greek texts by the diligent study of diverse excellent learned men expert in the aforesaid tongues. “Printed by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. Cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum. 1539.”