The moment we were left alone, Lord Cromer looked across the deserted tablecloth and said quietly, as though he were asking me to pass the salt, "Where is Bipontium?" I was driven by sheer fright into an exercise of intelligence, and answered at once, "I should think it must be the Latin for Zweibrücken. Why?" "Oh! I saw this afternoon that my edition of Diodorus Siculus was printed _ex typographia societatis Bipontinæ_, and I couldn't imagine for the life of me what 'Bipontium' was. No doubt you're quite right." Nothing could be more characteristic of Lord Cromer's habit of mind than this sudden revulsion of ideas. His active brain needed no preparation to turn from subject to subject, but seemed to be always ready, at a moment's notice, to take up a fresh line of thought with ardour. What it could not endure was to be left stranded with no theme on which to expatiate. In succeeding years, when it was often my daily enjoyment to listen to Lord Cromer's desultory conversation, as it leaped from subject to subject, I often thought of the alarming way in which "Bipontium" had pounced upon me at the dinner-table in the House of Commons. Some years passed before I had the privilege of renewing my experience of that evening. It was not until after his retirement from Egypt in the autumn of 1907 that I saw him again, and not then for some months. He returned, it will be remembered, in broken health. He used to say that when King Edward VII. wrote out to Cairo, strongly pressing him to stay, he had replied, in the words of Herodotus, "I am too old, oh King, and too inactive; so bid thou one of the younger men here to do these things." He very soon, however, recovered elasticity of mind and body when the load of office was removed from his shoulders, and "inactive" was the last epithet which could ever be applied to Lord Cromer. He began to attend the House of Lords, but, like a wise man, he was in no hurry to speak there till he had grown accustomed to the tone of the place. His earliest utterance (I may note the date, February 6th, 1908) we listened to with equal respect and curiosity; this was a new element from which much enjoyment might be expected.