‘For a period of nearly three years, viz. during the contest for the Great Western Railway Bill, I think that seldom a day passed without our meeting, whether for purposes of business or pleasure, both of which his buoyant spirits enabled him to combine in a manner which I have seldom seen equalled. ‘It would be wearisome to detail the many incidents which occurred illustrative of the singularly facile manner in which, in the midst of the heaviest and most responsible labours, he could enter into the most boyish pranks and fun, without in the least distracting his attention from the matter of business in which he was engaged; but all who knew him as I did could bear testimony to this characteristic of his disposition. ‘I believe that a more joyous nature, combined with the highest intellectual faculties, was never created, and I love to think of him in the character of the ever gay and kind-hearted friend of my early years, rather than in the more serious professional aspect under which your pages will, no doubt, rightly depict him. ‘In 1833 your father and I occupied chambers facing each other in Parliament Street, and as my duties involved the superintendence, as Parliamentary agent, of the compliance with all the Standing Orders of Parliament, and very frequent interviews and negotiations with the landowners on the line, we were of necessity constantly thrown together. To facilitate our intercourse, it occurred to your father to carry a string across Parliament Street, from his chambers to mine, to be there connected with a bell, by which he could either call me to the window to receive his telegraphic signals, or, more frequently, to wake me up in the morning when we had occasion to go into the country together, which, it is needless to observe, was of frequent occurrence; and great was the astonishment of the neighbours at this device, the object of which they were unable to comprehend. ‘I believe that at that time he scarcely ever went to bed, though I never remember to have seen him tired or out of spirits. He was a very constant smoker, and would take his nap in an arm-chair, very frequently with a cigar in his mouth; and if we were to start out of town at five or six o’clock in the morning, it was his frequent practice to rouse me out of bed about three, by means of the bell, when I would invariably find him up and dressed, and in great glee at the fun of having curtailed my slumbers by two or three hours more than necessary.