Twiss and his handsome new wife.  Horace had in a lesser degree some of Hook’s wonderful sense of humor and quickness of repartee, and the two men brought each other out with great effect.  Of course I had heard of Mr. Hook’s famous reply when, after having returned from the colonies, where he was in an official position, under suspicion of peculation, a friend meeting him said, “Why, hallo, Hook!  I did not know you were in England!  What has brought you back again?” “Something wrong about the chest,” replied the imperturbable wit.  He was at this time the editor of the John Bull, a paper of considerable ability, and only less scurrility than the Age; and in spite of his chest difficulty he was much sought in society for his extraordinary quickness and happiness in conversation.  His outrageous hoax of the poor London citizen, from whom he extorted an agonized invitation to dinner by making him believe that he and Charles Mathews were public surveyors, sent to make observations for a new road, which was to go straight through the poor shopkeeper’s lawn, flower-garden, and bedroom, he has, I believe, introduced into his novel of “Gilbert Gurney.”  But not, of course, with the audacious extemporaneous song with which he wound up the joke, when, having eaten and drank the poor citizen’s dinner, prepared for a small party of citizen friends (all the time assuring him that he and his friend would use their very best endeavors to avert the threatened invasion of his property by the new line of road), he proposed singing a song, to the great delight of the unsophisticated society, the concluding verse of which was—­

    “And now I am bound to declare
       That your wine is as good as your cook,
     And that this is Charles Mathews, the player,
       And I, sir, am Theodore Hook.”

He always demanded, when asked for a specimen of his extemporizing power, that a subject should be given to him.  I do not remember, on one occasion, what was suggested in the first instance, but after some discussion Horace Twiss cried out, “The Jews.”  It was the time of the first mooting of the question of the Jews being admitted to stand for Parliament and having seats in the House, and party spirit ran extremely high upon the subject.  Theodore Hook shrugged his shoulders and made a discontented grimace, as if baffled by his theme, the Jews.  However, he went to the piano, threw back his head, and began strumming a galloping country-dance tune, to which he presently poured forth the most inconceivable string of witty, comical, humorous, absurd allusions to everybody present as well as to the subject imposed upon him.  Horace Twiss was at that time under-secretary either for foreign affairs or the colonies, and Hook took occasion to say, or rather sing, that the foreign department could have little charms for a man who had so many more in the home, with an indication to Annie Twiss; the final verse of this real firework of wit was this—­