re himself no fatigue if he could in any way alleviate
sickness and pain.

In very many of my father's books there are frequent references to
delicious meals, wonderful dinners and more marvellous dishes, steaming
bowls of punch, etc, which have led many to believe that he was a man
very fond of the table. And yet I think no more abstemious man ever
lived.

In the "Gad's Hill" days, when the house was full of visitors, he had a
peculiar notion of always having the menu for the day's dinner placed on
the sideboard at luncheon time. And then he would discuss every item in
his fanciful, humorous way with his guests, much to this effect:
"Cock-a-leekie? Good, decidedly good; fried soles with shrimp sauce?
Good again; croquettes of chicken? Weak, very weak; decided want of
imagination here," and so on, and he would apparently be so taken up with
the merits or demerits of a menu that one might imagine he lived for
nothing but the coming dinner. He had a small but healthy appetite, but
was remarkably abstemious both in eating and drinking.

He was delightful as a host, caring individually for each guest, and
bringing the special qualities of each into full notice and prominence,
putting the very shyest at his or her ease, making the best of the most
humdrum, and never thrusting himself forward.

But when he was most delightful, was alone with us at home and sitting
over dessert, and when my sister was with us especially--I am talking now
of our grownup days--for she had great power in "drawing him out." At
such times although he might sit down to dinner in a grave or abstracted
mood, he would, invariably, soon throw aside his silence and end by
delighting us all with his genial talk and his quaint fancies about
people and things. He was always, as I have said, much interested in
mesmerism, and the curious influence exercised by one personality over
another. One illustration I remember his using was, that meeting someone
in the busy London streets, he was on the point of turning back to accost
the supposed friend, when finding out his mistake in time he walked on
again until he actually met the real friend, whose shadow, as it were,
but a moment ago had come across his path.

And then the forgetting of a word or a name. "Now into what pigeon-hole
of my brain did that go, and why do I suddenly remember it now?" And as
these thoughts passed through his mind and were spoken dreamily, so they
also appeared in his fac