He was sent, one hot summer’s day, with his baby sister and two nurses, to Kensington Gardens as a treat. When he came back his mother asked him if he had enjoyed it. “Oh yes,” he replied. “And what did you do?” she asked, but instead of replying in his usual bubbling fashion, he opened his eyes wide, and looking at her, exclaimed: “Do you know?” “Know what?” “Do you know?” “Well, what?” “Do you know?” he again repeated, his eyes nearly dropping out of his head by this time, “we saw a lady smoking!” Not being exactly sure what to reply to this remark, the fond mother went on with her work. Seeing her unresponsive, the young gentleman trotted into the next room where his father was smoking. “Dad, do you know?” “Yes, I know, you went to tea in Kensington Gardens.” “But DO YOU KNOW?” repeated the small boy, more earnestly than ever; and then standing before his father with his hands behind his back, he solemnly announced: “WE SAW A LADY SMOKING!” The father, like the mother, was a little nonplussed, and merely exclaimed: “Oh, really!” But the small boy stood firm to his ground, and with eyes still wider than before, exclaimed: “Dad, do you think _she was learning to be a gentleman_?” Occasionally my eyes light upon some jotting worthy of almost pigeon-hole dignity—too prized for the society of mere scraps, yet too small for the space of a chapter. Here is one concerning a famous lawyer. Fate has often thrown me into the company of lawyers—the most excellent of people when you don’t meet them in a professional, or fee-paying sense. The really busy advocate is in most cases a delightful man, for the very qualities which make him a social favourite go no little way to establish his success at the Bar. I once asked Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., what was his recipe for producing a good barrister, and was a little surprised at the importance he attached to the study of oratory. “Every law student at the beginning of his work should study the art of speaking, the most valuable and the most highly rewarded of all the arts which can be acquired by man. “The counsel needs the power of fluent and correct expression and of the rhetorical arrangement of his argument of speech. He should have an easy, clear, and well-modulated elocution which compels attention, makes it pleasant to listen to him, and so predisposes in his favour the judgment of his hearers.” “Ah, but has everyone this gift?” I said. “Perhaps not, but all these things must be acquired. Each one of them requires a special study. Some men are, no doubt, more highly gifted by nature than others in strength of intellect, tenacity of memory, and the graces of oratory, but no one was ever so highly gifted as to be able to dispense with the labour by which the natural powers are trained and strengthened. The best books for the young law student are _Whately’s Logic_ and _Whately’s Rhetoric_. They should be read and re-read until he knows them from cover to cover.”