elderly woman, and he could not trouble her to come to his rooms so early in the morning; on the other hand, he could not stay in bed until he thought it right for her to go out; so it ended in his doing a great deal for himself.  He then got his breakfast and read the Times.  At 9.30 Alfred came, with whom he discussed anything requiring attention, and soon afterwards his laundress arrived.  Then he started to walk to the British Museum, where he arrived about 10.30, every alternate morning calling at the butcher’s in Fetter Lane to order his meat.  In the Reading Room at the Museum he sat at Block B ("B for Butler”) and spent an hour “posting his notes”—­that is reconsidering, rewriting, amplifying, shortening, and indexing the contents of the little note-book he always carried in his pocket.  After the notes he went on till 1.30 with whatever book he happened to be writing.

On three days of the week he dined in a restaurant on his way home, and on the other days he dined in his chambers where his laundress had cooked his dinner.  At two o’clock Alfred returned (having been home to dinner with his wife and children) and got tea ready for him.  He then wrote letters and attended to his accounts till 3.45, when he smoked his first cigarette.  He used to smoke a great deal, but, believing it to be bad for him, took to cigarettes instead of pipes, and gradually smoked less and less, making it a rule not to begin till some particular hour, and pushing this hour later and later in the day, till it settled itself at 3.45.  There was no water laid on in his rooms, and every day he fetched one can full from the tap in the court, Alfred fetching the rest.  When anyone expostulated with him about cooking his own breakfast and fetching his own water, he replied that it was good for him to have a change of occupation.  This was partly the fact, but the real reason, which he could not tell everyone, was that he shrank from inconveniencing anybody; he always paid more than was necessary when anything was done for him, and was not happy then unless he did some of the work himself.

At 5.30 he got his evening meal, he called it his tea, and it was little more than a facsimile of breakfast.  Alfred left in time to post the letters before six.  Butler then wrote music till about 8, when he came to see me in Staple Inn, returning to Clifford’s Inn by about 10.  After a light supper, latterly not more than a piece of toast and a glass of milk, he played one game of his own particular kind of Patience, prepared his breakfast things and fire ready for the next morning, smoked his seventh and last cigarette, and went to bed at eleven o’clock.