Here is another characteristic trait:  some navvy had found an old rusty anchor near the Thames Tunnel, one of Brunel’s ruinous follies,—­now, as we all know, finished and utilised by a railway.  This anchor, a small one, probably lost by some “jolly young waterman,” Mr. Hawkins maintained was Roman; and he had made for it a superb crimson case lined with satin, which hung on his drawing-room wall at Hammersmith as a decoration.  He was also proud of possessing the paw of the Arctic bear which had attacked Captain Parry, but from which he escaped, as also did the bear, for no one is said to have shot the beast:  however, there was the paw in proof:  and there were divers other uncommon properties.

One of the most curious matters about my friend was this:  the anagram of his name in full (and he always wrote Esquire and not Esq.) exactly describes him, with his peculiarity of greeting one with “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!” and with his usual signature “W.H.,” which also he put on a medal for good conduct to youths, and gave my son one of those “W.H. medals.”  Now the words “Oh, Walter Hawkins, Esquire,” makes anagrammatically, “W.H., who likes rare antiques!” exactly his idiosyncrasy as a man and a collector.

We all know how strangely “The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone, M.P.,” spells, “I am the Whig M.P. who’ll be a traitor to England’s rule:”—­may it not prove to be prophetic.  And still more strange is the fact that the words “William Ewart Gladstone” spell “Erin, we will go mad at last!” which seems only too likely.  Another curious anagram is this,—­in a far different vein:  “Christmas comes but once a year,” makes “So by Christ came a rescue to man.”  There’s no end to these petty word miracles.

But to revert to our theme and to conclude it.  As a West India merchant, Mr. Hawkins one day sent me down to Albury a hogshead of sugar and some sacks of rice, to be given (or, as he preferred it, sold at half price for honour’s sake and not to pauperise) to my poorer neighbours for a Christmas gift.  Well, to please him, I tried to sell, and only raised the rancour of the shopkeepers, who declared I was competing with them as a grocer:  then I gave, with the same experience that soup charity had before taught me, to wit, that poor quarrelled with poorer, and both with me, for more or less given.  So I was glad when it all came to an end.  It is very difficult, as many a Lady Bountiful knows, to be charitable on a wide scale:  e.g. once, in my country life, I tried to recommend brown bread and oatmeal; and got nothing by it but ill-will, as if wishing to starve the poor by denial of wheat-flour.