When I was an Eton boy, I was staying with a country squire, a most courteous old gentleman with a high temper.  The first morning, I contrived to come down a minute or two late for prayers.  There was no chair for me.  The Squire suspended his reading of the Bible with a deadly sort of resignation, and made a gesture to the portly butler.  That functionary rose from his own chair, and with loudly creaking boots carried it across the room for my acceptance.  I sat down, covered with confusion.  The butler returned; and two footmen, who were sitting on a little form, made reluctant room for him.  The butler sat down on one end of the form, unfortunately before his equipoise, the second footman, had taken his place at the other end.  The result was that the form tipped up, and a cataract of flunkies poured down upon the floor.  There was a ghastly silence; then the Gadarene herd slowly recovered itself, and resumed its place.  The Squire read the chapter in an accent of suppressed fury, while the remainder of the party, with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces, made the most unaccountable sounds and motions for the rest of the proceeding.  I was really comparatively guiltless, but the shadow of that horrid event sensibly clouded the whole of my visit.

I was only a spectator of the other event.  We had assembled for prayers in the dimly-lighted hall of the house of a church dignitary, and the chapter had begun, when a man of almost murderous shyness, who was a guest, opened his bedroom door and came down the stairs.  Our host suspended his reading.  The unhappy man came down, but, instead of slinking to his place, went and stood in front of the fire, under the impression that the proceedings had not taken shape, and addressed some remarks upon the weather to his hostess.  In the middle of one of his sentences, he suddenly divined the situation, on seeing the row of servants sitting in a thievish corner of the hall.  He took his seat with the air of a man driving to the guillotine, and I do not think I ever saw any one so much upset as he was for the remainder of his stay.  Of course it may be said that a sense of humour should have saved a man from such a collapse of moral force, but a sense of humour requires to be very strong to save a man from the sense of having made a conspicuous fool of himself.

I would add one more small reminiscence, of an event from which I can hardly say with honesty that I have yet quite recovered, although it took place nearly thirty years ago.  I went, as a schoolboy, with my parents, to stay at a very big country house, the kind of place to which I was little used, where the advent of a stately footman to take away my clothes in the morning used to fill me with misery.  The first evening there was a big dinner-party.  I found myself sitting next my delightful and kindly hostess, my father being on the other side of her.  All went well till dessert, when an amiable, long-haired spaniel came to my side to beg of me.  I had nothing