As soon as Mr. Crawford had finished his writing, Labouchere broached the subject of the _Daily News_. He said: "A fancy seized me, as Sheffield (of the British Embassy) told me you had sent your little children to England, and your wife had resolved to stay through the siege and give you what help she can. It is to take your place as correspondent of the _Daily News_, and to send you into the provinces. As I am a proprietor of the paper, Robinson won't object to this arrangement. It would be an excellent thing {121} for my heirs were I to stop a bullet or die of starvation, but were anything of the sort to befall you it would be calamitous for you and yours. You need not leave me the six weeks' provisions which Sheffield told me you laid in, but can give them to poor neighbours. I can always get as much fresh mutton as I want from the porter of the British Embassy, who has orders to this effect. There is a flock of ewes and wethers on the grounds there, to browse on the grass and eat the hay laid in for the horses of Lord Lyons, before he had directions from Granville to go to Tours to watch events there. The only person at the Embassy is the porter. We two will have more mutton than we can eat even if the siege lasts long. The porter knows how to grow potatoes and mushrooms in an empty cellar, so that we two shall have not only meat but dainties to vary the dishes. I have arranged to have rooms at the Grand Hotel, so you see I shall be in clover." Mrs. Crawford, who did not the least believe he was in earnest, protested that she was not at all afraid of remaining in Paris, but Labouchere persisted in his persuasions. "If you were at all affected," he replied, "I should say, 'Don't be theatrical.' Instead of that I shall say, 'Don't be like Lot's wife.'" Then he took out his watch and explained that the last train to leave Paris between then and the end of the siege would start from the Gare St. Lazare that night at 9.40. "I advise you to go home at once," he went on, "and pack up what clothes you can for your temporary residence at the seat of the delegate government at Tours. Lyons will be glad to have you near him, for, as you can understand, he knows nothing personally of those friends of yours whom the Revolution has brought to the top." Mrs. Crawford lost no more time in discussion, and hurried off to make her preparations in order to catch the last train by which she and her husband could get out of Paris. The 9.40 train did not leave St. Lazare that day before {122} midnight, and such was its weight of passengers and baggage that no fewer than three engines had to be coupled on.