f the staff of Lord French, the present Viceroy,
care to examine the sword of state and the mace, they will find them
both heavily dented. This is due to two small boys having frequently
dropped them when they proved too heavy for their strength, during
strictly private processions fifty-five years ago. I often wonder what
a deputation from the Corporation of Belfast must have thought when
they were ushered into the throne-room, and found it already in the
occupation of two small brats, one of whom, with a star cut out of
silver paper pinned to his packet to counterfeit an order, was lolling
back on the throne in a lordly manner, while the other was feigning to
read a long statement from a piece of paper. The small boys, after the
manner of their kind, quickly vanished through a bolt-hole.

The Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle was built by my grandfather, the Duke
of Bedford, who was Viceroy in 1806, and it bears the stamp of the
unfortunate period of its birth on every detail of its
"carpenter-Gothic" interior. It is, however, very ornate, with a
profusion of gilding, stained glass and elaborate oak carving. My
father and mother sat by themselves on two red velvet arm-chairs in a
sort of pew-throne that projected into the Chapel. The Aide-de-Camp in
waiting, an extremely youthful warrior as a rule, had to stand until
the door of the pew was shut, when a folding wooden flap was lowered
across the aperture, on which he seated himself, with his back resting
against the pew door. At the conclusion of the service the Verger
always opened the pew door with a sudden "click." Should the
Aide-de-Camp be unprepared for this and happen to be leaning against
the door, with any reasonable luck he was almost certain to tumble
backwards into the aisle, "taking a regular toss," as hunting-men would
say, and to our unspeakable delight we would see a pair of slim legs in
overalls and a pair of spurred heels describing a graceful parabola as
they followed their youthful owner into the aisle. This particular form
of religious relaxation appealed to me enormously, and I looked forward
to it every Sunday.

It was an episode that could only occur once with each person, for
forewarned was forearmed; still, as we had twelve Aides-de-Camp, and
they were constantly changing, the pew door played its practical joke
quite often enough to render the Services in the Chapel Royal very
attractive and engrossing, and I noticed that no Aide-de-Camp was eve