naturally left to me in his will. About a year before I came of age my guardians had taken upon themselves to go through these letters and destroy something like three-fourths of them because forsooth they did not think I ought to read them. I was exceedingly bitter about this, and it is an offence for which I have never forgiven them.

When I came into my money I parted with Ferishtah and purchased the freehold of a house at Teddington called Broom Hall. It was an old-fashioned house, not very well built, but it had lovely grounds and a long frontage to a wide and smooth piece of the river just above Teddington Weir. I settled Moyse in the lodge and put up an elaborate electric light station with accumulators, and made the house comfortable, and I took my old nurse and her daughters to act as my servants. In addition to running my steam launch I used to do a good deal of rowing in those days, and had a little boathouse in the grounds. I often made expeditions of several days up the river, sleeping on the floor of the Isabel, and plunged over the side into the silver Thames for my morning bath.

There was an island about half a mile above Teddington Lock which belonged to a neighbour of mine called Tatham, and one day he took upon himself to initiate a prosecution against me under the by-laws of the Thames Conservancy, because he said the wash of my launch had disturbed the earth on the bank of his horrid little island. This was my first acquaintance with Robson, because we took him as our junior to defend me at the Spelthorne Petty Sessions, and subsequently in our appeal to Quarter Sessions, in both of which courts I need hardly say we were unsuccessful. However, the prosecutor came to a bad end, for a few years later he was sentenced to penal servitude for defrauding his clients.

While waiting in the Police Court for our case to come on, we had an amusing experience of Justices' justice. A man was summoned for riding a bicycle on the footpath, of which the evidence was very thin and conflicting, but the Chairman quite cheerily convicted him, and gave as his reason that he was annoyed by hearing cyclists using bad language when he went to church on Sundays! Robson could scarcely contain his laughter, but he suggested to me that we had not much chance before that sort of tribunal.

For about a year I had at Broom Hall a most adorable St. Bernard which belonged to Mrs. Dick. It had, however, a playful habit of biting little boys, which had got her into trouble, and so she sent it to me. Unfortunately it continued this habit so that none of the tradesmen's boys would come near the house, and whenever

the dog felt inclined it used to walk up into Teddington and help itself to a joint of butcher's meat. The butcher made no attempt to interfere, but simply charged the joint to me. Of course, the dog was really perfectly harmless and quite friendly, but naturally when it saw silly little boys running away with every sign of terror, it bit a piece out of their trousers. However, it became so bad that I had at last to send it back to Mrs. Dick, and it was soon afterwards destroyed.

After I came back from Naples we started the business of Swinburne and Co. in my grounds on account of the convenient supply of electricity, but I did not keep the house long because Mabel Edith thought it gloomy, and so after having spent a lot of money on it I sold it at a great loss on my marriage in 1890.

CHAPTER XVI

AMERICA IN 1885

N October, 1885, Balfour and I set sail for a visit to America, with the sanction of my guardians, as a sort of grand tour. I had always been anxious to visit the United States, and in the short space of about six months I saw the greater part of them with the exception of the North-West and the Yellowstone Park, and never went outside of the United States during the whole trip, with the exception of crossing the bridge at Niagara, and just setting foot in Mexico at Paso del Norte. We crossed on the Etruria, on what was, I think, her maiden or her second voyage, I am not sure which. She did over twenty knots, and logged more than 500 miles many days, which was considerably in excess of what we did in twenty-four hours on the railway trains of the West.

Of course, she carried hundreds of passengers, but we were fortunate in the people with whom we found ourselves at table. There was Manton Marble, the Senator, full of political information, whose daughter married Martin Conway the explorer; Mrs. Blomfield Moore, an eccentric and wealthy widow of Philadelphia, whom we saw something of afterwards; and Professor O. C. Marsh, one of the most delightful men I ever met He was a professor at Yale, had crossed the Rockies seventeen times, and was renowned as the discoverer of the fossil horse. His conversation and his anecdotes about his adventures were a continual delight.

On landing in New York the first thing that struck me was the inquisitorial set of questions that one had to fill up even in those days, and the extraordinary number of articles that appeared to be dutiable. Of course, both these lists have been extended since, and on a subsequent visit when I was asked: "Do you believe in polygamy?" on one of these forms I was so affronted that I replied: I have not considered the question, but I have observed that it is practised by all Christian nations." One can imagine the fun they had during the War when there were passports and the inquisition was naturally more detailed and personal. One woman

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was described on her passport in 1916 as having a blemish, which was in fact high up on her cheek. She had been sick all the way over, she had waited in a long queue to reach the passport officer, he had put her through a long catechism as to her motives in coming and other personal matters, and finally looking at her passport he said: "Where's your blemish?" Fed up and irritated with waiting she snapped out: "I'm sitting upon it," whereupon the virtuous Yank blushed and said: "Pass on, Madam, pass on, please."

The first impression of New York in those days to a Londoner was of a disgustingly untidy and unfinished city. The streets were in such a condition that one was jolted to pieces, they were festooned with telegraph wires hanging about anyhow with varying degrees of slackness, they were occupied by the most miserable, jolty, horse-drawn tramcars and disfigured by the most hideous and blatant advertisements. The noise was terrific, almost worse than Paris. Cabs cost about four shillings a mile instead of sixpence, and you couldn't buy a newspaper under twopence halfpenny, and it wasn't worth buying then. The dignified quiet of the lounge in an English hotel was replaced by a huge bustling hall like a busy department at Selfridge's. I took a dislike to New York, which I never got over until my last visit in 1917.

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The inhabitants, however, did everything possible to make up by their extreme kindness and hospitality. We were made members of innumerable clubs and were asked to any number of fashionable dinners and parties. The Duke of Sutherland was visiting New York at this time in his yacht, and at one of the dinner parties I met him accompanied by Mrs. Blair. She seemed to me rather unexplained, and when I asked my neighbour who she was his answer was: Oh, a niece, or sister-in-law or something." Incredible as it may seem, he took in New York society for a whole season, and forced this woman upon the people who thought Maxim Gorky unfit even to hire a bed in their city. The Duke was not very bright in his faculties even at this time, for on being introduced to him as the Earl Russell, his first question was: "How's your father?" to which the only possible reply I could make was that I didn't know. I remember one delightful party at a club where they induced me to take some cold punch. Its coolness disguised the effect for a few minutes, but when it thawed I had to be taken home in much the same condition as that in which Mr. Pickwick was wheeled to the pound.