As Junior also I was one of the recognised spokesmen for the Circuit on the occasion of all public banquets and entertainments; and I remember that it was at a dinner given by the late Lord Armstrong in his capacity as High Sheriff of the County, a dinner served in the great banqueting-hall at Jesmond Dene, the walls of which were richly decorated with many important examples of modern art, that I made my first essay as a public speaker. But what interested me most keenly at the time was the opportunity which the daily working of the Courts afforded of appreciating and distinguishing the great talents of the men who then graced the Circuit. The first who won my admiration, and it was not wonderful, was Charles Russell, and I remember, in the constant discussions which occupied the Junior end of our table at the evening mess, I always stoutly maintained that he would prove the greatest advocate in England. He already possessed that dominating personality which was felt by Judge and Counsel alike, and an instance of his imperious temper came to me very early in our acquaintance. Though I had seen and admired him constantly in Court, I had not been introduced to him till I met him one evening in the rooms of Mr. M‘Connell in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. Russell was always a keen cardplayer, though I am assured by those who are better able to judge, a player not distinguished by any exceptional skill. There were four of us present that evening, and Russell at once insisted that the table should be brought out for a rubber of whist. I nervously explained to him that I knew scarcely anything of the game, but my objection was curtly overborne in a manner that left me no alternative. By an unhappy fate Russell cut me as a partner, and the blunders which I had clearly foreseen must occur, endured at first with some semblance of equanimity, at last ended in an explosion of rebuke that only made the more inevitable a series of even worse blunders in the game to follow. By this time Russell had lost all patience, and, to say the truth, so had I, and with a courage and audacity, which I certainly could not have exhibited had I then known him better, I pointed out to him that the fault was his own, that I had warned him of my incompetence, and yet in the face of that confession he had forced me to join in the game. To my utter amazement he became suddenly gentle and self-controlled, and said, “Yes, yes, you’re right. I had forgotten that. I had no business to speak to you like that.” Other instances of Russell’s commanding personality, though they belong to a later time, come back to me now.