One of his last acts on leaving America after a lecturing tour, was to return twenty-five per cent. of the proceeds of one of his lectures to a young speculator who had been a loser by the bargain. While known to hand a gold piece to a waiter with the remark: 'My friend, will you do me the favour to accept a sovereign?' he has also been known to say to a visitor who had proffered a card: 'Don't leave this bit of paper; it has cost you two cents, and will be just as good for your next call.' Evidently aware that money when properly used is a wonderful health-restorer, he was found by a friend who had entered his bedroom in Paris, gravely placing some napoleons in a pill-box, on the lid of which was written: 'One to be taken occasionally.' When asked to explain, it came out that these strange pills were for an old person who said she was very ill, and in distress; and so he had concluded that this was the medicine wanted. 'Dr. Thackeray,' he remarked, 'intends to leave it with her himself. Let us walk out together.' To a young literary man afterwards his amanuensis, he wrote thus, on hearing that a loss had befallen him: 'I am sincerely sorry to hear of your position, and send the little contribution which came so opportunely from another friend whom I was enabled once to help. When you are well-to-do again, I know you will pay it back; and I daresay somebody else will want the money, which is meanwhile most heartily at your service.' When enjoying an American repast at Boston in 1852, his friends there, determined to surprise him with the size of their oysters, had placed six of the largest bivalves they could find, on his plate. After swallowing number one with some little difficulty, his friend asked him how he felt. 'Profoundly grateful,' he gasped; 'and as if I had swallowed a little baby.' Previous to a farewell dinner given by his American intimates and admirers, he remarked that it was very kind of his friends to give him a dinner, but that such things always set him trembling. 'Besides,' he remarked to his secretary, 'I have to make a speech, and what am I to say? Here, take a pen in your hand and sit down, and I'll see if I can hammer out something. It's hammering now, I'm afraid it will be stammering by-and-by.' His short speeches, when delivered, were as characteristic and unmistakable as anything he ever wrote. All the distinct features of his written style were present.