Personally Froude had no cranks; his disposition was most urbane, whilst he was very neat in his appearance and also in his handwriting.  It would certainly be of interest to give a few of his racy letters, too often undated, which I have preserved.  Unfortunately, his executors firmly refuse the necessary legal consent, so that I am compelled to make my book irreparably the poorer by omitting what should have been one of its most attractive contents.  In justice to Froude’s memory, I ought to add that there was nothing in his correspondence with me that would have diminished his high repute.  I mention this because otherwise busybodies might have misinterpreted the arbitrary action of his executors to the detriment of his fame.

A later friendship than that with Froude also must have a sincere allusion in these pages, for I have derived much pleasure from my association with Sir Henry Howorth, a ripe old lawyer of Portuguese extraction, who has rendered valuable political service by his polemical letters to the Times, on which I can pass a most favourable opinion.  His histories of the Mongols, the Mammoth, and the Flood are possibly more permanent, but they are not of such contemporary note.  At any rate, I respect them from a distance, whilst I admire the political effusions as the capital work of a comrade under arms, and one who is not afraid to verbally bludgeon any formidable contemporary Hooligans.

Sir Henry Howorth occasionally breaks out into a story, though he is more frequently a listener to mine.  This is one of his that I happen to recall:—­

The Mayor of Richmond gave a dinner, at which a distinguished Frenchman sat next the Mayor’s son, and on replying for the guests in imperfect English, observed:—­

’I am vary happy to be here, and to meet my young friend, who is a sheep of the old bloke,’ meaning, of course, a chip of the old block.

I plead guilty to have materially increased the interest felt by Sir Henry in Irish affairs, which is not diminished by the fact that a niece of Lord Ashbourne is married to his son.

I think it was to him that I recommended another panacea for the evils of Ireland, namely, that it would be a good plan to exchange Ireland for Holland, for the Dutch would reclaim Ireland, and the Irish would neglect the banks of Holland, with the eventual result that the living Irish question would be washed away.

Just now I alluded to a mayor, which reminds me of a story about an Irish mayoress.  As his Majesty has by this time been entertained at several Corporation luncheons, it is not invidious to give the tale.

The Mayoress, who was the heroine of the festal occasion in question, felt completely overpowered by the royal society in which she found herself, and when seated at the meal next to the King, was absolutely unable to articulate any reply at all to the observations he addressed to her, so eventually he gave her up, and turned his colloquial attentions to the lady on the other side.