[61] She was still so beset by begging letters, that Mr. Smith had a notice inserted in the _Times_ of April 29, 1864, to the effect that she could not answer them or return any papers enclosed to her. How indispensable to her was Dr. Sutherland's help comes out from some correspondence of 1865. Captain Galton had sent private word that there was talk at the War Office of appointing Dr. Sutherland Commissioner to inquire into an outbreak of cholera at some of the Mediterranean Stations. Miss Nightingale was greatly perturbed. "We are full of Indian business," she wrote (Nov. 1), "which must be settled before Parliament meets. Lord Stanley has consented to take it up. And I have pledged myself to have it all ready--a thing I should never have done if I had thought Dr. Sutherland would be sent abroad. You are yourself aware that Calcutta water-supply has been sent home to us (at my request), and Dr. S. told me this morning that _he and I_ should have to write the Report." And again (Dec. 15): "For God's sake, if you can, prevent Dr. Sutherland going." She had begged that at any rate nothing should be said to Dr. Sutherland himself about it unless the mission were irrevocably decided upon: "he is so childish that if he heard of this Malta and Gibraltar business he would instantly declare there was nothing to keep him in England." The "child"--the "baby" of some earlier correspondence[62]--only liked a little change sometimes. Indispensable though he was to his task-mistress, he yet, as in former days, vexed her. She thought him lacking in method, and with her this was one of the unpardonable sins. He sometimes forgot what he had done with, or had promised to do with, a particular Paper; he was even capable of mislaying a Blue-book. He was often behind hand with tasks imposed upon him. His temperament was a little volatile, and in one impeachment he is accused of "incurable looseness of thought." If this were so (which I take leave to doubt), the defect must have been congenital, or long service under Miss Nightingale would have cured it. [62] See Vol. I. pp. 370, 383.