One of my brothers has still in his keeping a very large gold medal. One side of it bears the effigy of "Napoleon III., Empereur des Francais." The other side testifies that it is the "Premier Prix d'Avirons de la Mediterrannee, 1866." The ugly hybrid word "Championnat" for "Championship" had not then been acclimatised in France. Shortly after the boat-race, being now nine years old, I went home to England to go to school. CHAPTER III A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial waiters of the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge-Indians and pirates--The imagination of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-warrants; imaginary and real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The Abergele railway accident--A Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private ceremonials--Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal--An unbidden spectator of the State dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature--An unexpected honour and its cause--Incidents of the Fenian rising--Dr. Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King Edward--Gorgeous ceremonial but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen Alexandra. Upon returning from school for my first holidays, I learnt that my father had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that we were in consequence to live now for the greater portion of the year in Dublin. We were all a little doubtful as to how we should like this new departure. Dublin was, of course, fairly familiar to us from our stays there, when we travelled to and from the north of Ireland. Some of the minor customs of the "sixties" seem so remote now that it may be worth while recalling them. In common with most Ulster people, we always stayed at the Bilton Hotel in Dublin, a fine old Georgian house in Sackville Street. Everything at the Bilton was old, solid, heavy, and eminently respectable. All the plate was of real Georgian silver, and all the furniture in the big gloomy bedrooms was of solid, not veneered, mahogany. Quite invariably my father was received in the hall, on arrival, by the landlord, with a silver candlestick in his hand. The landlord then proceeded ceremoniously to "light us upstairs" to a sitting-room on the first floor, although the staircase was bright with gas. This was a survival from the eighteenth century, when staircases and passages in inns were but dimly lit; but it was an attention that was expected. In the same way, when dinner was ready in our sitting-room, the landlord always brought in the silver soup-tureen with his own hands, placed it ceremoniously before my father, and removed the cover with a great flourish; after which he retired, and left the rest to the waiter. This was another traditional attention.