polish of
manner that prevailed among these my elders than any which was
cultivated among my own, the then rising, generation. In such an
atmosphere the Duke's special gifts were at home. He never strained
after effect. His words seemed to crystallize into wit or poignant humor
before he had time to reflect on what he was going to say. But these
qualities were perhaps seen at their best in tete-a-tete encounters or
correspondence. At all events, it is from such occurrences that
illustrations of them can be most readily drawn.

He had often spoken to me of his dislike of anything in the nature of
jobbery, and this was once brought out in a very characteristic way by a
passage at arms between himself and Lady St. Helier. Lady St. Helier had
written to him to ask him if, as Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex, he would
make one of her friends a magistrate. The duke promptly replied that her
friend was an entire stranger to him, and that he never made
appointments of that kind as a favor to some third party. There the
matter rested for a week or two, at the end of which period she received
the following note from him:

DEAR LADY ST. HELIER.

You have treated me extremely ill. I have made inquiries about
your friend, and I find he is part-proprietor of--here he named
a certain place of amusement--which I learn is frequently used
as a place for assignations of a very reprehensible kind.

Lady St. Helier's immediate reply was this:

MY DEAR DUKE.

I have nothing more to say. You are acquainted with such
matters so much better than I am.

Not long afterward he met her on somebody's doorstep, and she, who was
taking her departure, greeted him with some slight frigidity. He merely
looked at her with a momentary twinkle in his eye, and said, "I think
you had me there." Some days later she received yet another letter from
him, which consisted of these words:

DEAR LADY ST. HELIER.

The deed is done. God forgive me.

A further encounter took place of something the same kind--the duke
himself told me of this--from which he emerged the victor. He had, he
said, received a letter from Lady Herbert of Lee, in which she begged
him to contribute L100 toward the total required for the restoration of
some Catholic church, and his answer had been as follows:

DEAR LADY HERBERT.

I shall be very happy to give you the sum you name, for a
purpose so excellent as yours. At