It happened that we were just then about to have the carriage glazed in, as it has been since, to protect it from ruthless souvenir hunters, whose mutilations necessitated our keeping in stock rolls of cloth of the same pattern to renew the lining from time to time. I wonder how many people in different parts of the world now show their friends strips of cloth purporting to be taken from the original lining of the Napoleon carriage, whereas the “souvenirs” are really “relics” of the looms of Yorkshire. The last to sit in Napoleon’s carriage were the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert. CHAPTER XXXIII The Begum of Bhopal pays us a visit--Lord Rosebery and Lord Annaly--Lord Randolph Churchill--Lady Beatty, Lady Jellicoe, and Mrs. Asquith. It was on the 29th of June, eight years ago, that we had a visit from the Begum of Bhopal, a lady who rules over millions in India. She was in London for the coronation of King George and Queen Mary. As the Begum was a Moslem, we were somewhat concerned as to how we should receive Her Highness, it being rumoured that she could not be chaperoned by one of the opposite sex. I must deny the story that we had to turn all the males out of the Exhibition, for there was no occasion to do so. The Begum was dressed in brown, with a flowing white yashmak hanging from a quaint head-dress shaped like a top-hat of the Leech period. This veil, by the etiquette of her country, is worn in the company of men, the wearer looking through two eye-holes. In order that the exhibits might be explained to her, my wife and a friend of hers, Mrs. Arthur Dulcken, who spoke Hindustani fluently, acted as guides. Two turbaned gentlemen were in attendance, and the Begum walked between her little grandson and granddaughter, whose hands she held. Her knowledge of English history was surprising. Even the Prince, who was only six years old, prattled about different English kings, though he insisted that the good King Alfred, shown in the neatherd’s cottage, where he is being rated by the shrew for allowing her cakes to burn, was a fairy-tale like that of the Sleeping Beauty. When the party came to the Grand Hall in which King George and Queen Mary sat arrayed in their coronation robes, with six Princesses of the Royal House standing around them, “Bara Salaam,” said the Begum, as she bowed to the Emperor of India. Before the scene which shows Queen Victoria receiving the news of her accession to the throne the little lady halted. “She was very beautiful,” she said, “and so wise and kind and sympathetic.” It was the tribute of one woman ruler to another. “She was very beautiful,” she said again, “and so small. In Bhopal we think small people beautiful.” The Begum’s inches were some sixty-two. She glanced approvingly at the model of Tom Thumb, and proudly placed her grandson by the figure of the Russian giant to accentuate her admiration for small people.