His voice varied more in tone and quality than that of any other man I have ever met, and over these variations he seemed to have little control; and this, too, made it very difficult for strangers to detect the trippings and hesitancies, gentle, wayward, and infinitely sensitive, of his childlike temperament. Within the limits of one simple utterance he would achieve sounds resembling the drumming of sudden rain on galvanised iron and the ecstatic whistlings of dew-drunk birds. It was sometimes difficult to follow the purport of his speech for sheer wonder at the sounds that slid and leaped and burst from his lips. His voice reminded me of a child strumming on some strange musical instrument of extraordinary range and capacity which it had not learned how to play. His laughter was ventriloquial and rarely bore any accountable relationship to the expressions of mirth of ordinary men. It was like an explosive rendering of one of those florid scales dear to piano-tuners, but sometimes it suggested rather an earthquake in his boots. He dwelt in a little flat that seemed like the upper floor of a doll’s-house when related to its proprietor, and here it was his delight to dispense a hospitality charmingly individual. His meals recalled nothing so much as the illicit feasts held in school dormitories, and when he peered curiously into his own cupboards he always looked as if he were about to steal jam. He would produce viand after viand with the glee of a successful explorer, and in terms of his eager hospitality the most bizarre cates appeared congruous and even intimately connected, so that at his board grown men would eat like schoolboys, with the great careless appetite of youth. He had a fine library and a still finer collection of mechanical toys, which were for him a passion and a delight. It was pleasant to see him set some painted piece of clockwork careering on the hearthrug, stooping over it tenderly, with wondering eyes, and hands intent to guard it from disaster. It was pleasant, too, to hear him recite Swinburne, of whom he was a passionate admirer; for, though his voice would be as rebellious as ever, his whole body would thrill and pulse with the music of the poet. He always touched books softly because he loved them. Of bonfires he spoke reverently, though a London flat hardly lent itself to their active exploitation; and I remember that he told me once that nothing gave him a keener sense of what he had lost in growing up than the scent of burning twigs and leaves. Yet if he felt this loss, what should it have been for us who had come so much farther than he!