always from fifteen minutes to half an hour in advance of the time
set by his invitation. He greeted me with great cordiality, and
at once what were known as the Gladstone tentacles were fastened
on me for information. It was a peculiarity with the grand old
man that he extracted from a stranger practically all the man knew,
and the information was immediately assimilated in his wonderful
mind. He became undoubtedly the best-informed man on more subjects
than anybody in the world.

Mr. Gladstone said to me: "It has been raining here for forty days.
What is the average rainfall in the United States and in New York?"
If there was any subject about which I knew less than another, it
was the meteorological conditions in America. He then continued
with great glee: "Our friend, Lord Rosebery, has everything and
knows everything, so it is almost impossible to find for him
something new. Great books are common, but I have succeeded
in my explorations among antiquarian shops in discovering the most
idiotic book that ever was written. It was by an old lord mayor of
London, who filled a volume with his experiences in an excursion
on the Thames, which is the daily experience of every Englishman."
To the disappointment of Mr. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery also had
that book. The evening was a memorable one for me.

After a most charming time and dinner, while Lord Rosebery went
off to meet an engagement to speak at a meeting of colonial
representatives, Lady Rosebery took Mr. Gladstone and myself
to the opera at Covent Garden. There was a critical debate on
in the House of Commons, and the whips were running in to inform
him of the progress of the battle and to get instructions from
the great leader.

During the entr'actes Mr. Gladstone most interestingly talked of
his sixty years' experience of the opera. He knew all the great
operas of that period, and criticised with wonderful skill the
composers and their characteristics. He gave a word picture of
all the great artists who had appeared on the English stage and
the merits and demerits of each. A stranger listening to him would
have said that a veteran musical critic, who had devoted his life
to that and nothing else, was reminiscing. He said that thirty
years before the manager of Covent Garden had raised the pitch,
that this had become so difficult that most of the artists, to reach
it, used the tremolo, and that the tremolo had taken away from him
the exquisite p