. Jo was nearly as large as
his brother, the well-known legal luminary, and Paul Merritt rolled into
one, and wore his black wide-awake on the back of his pleasing,
intelligent head. I saw him one sultry autumn evening leaning against a
lamp-post in Chancery Lane to take breath.

"Hullo, Pope, where are you going?"

"My dear boy, let me lean on you a minute. I'm going up to the
Birkbeck--to lecture--to lecture on 'Air, and How We Breathe!'"

As a contrast to the popular Doctor was a wit more popularly known, H. J.
Byron--as thin as the proverbial lamp-post. Of course the stories about
Byron would fill a volume, but there is one that is always worth
repeating, and that is his reply to a vulgar and obtrusive stranger who
met him at Plymouth, and said to him, "Mr. Byron, I've 'ad a walk _h_all
round the 'Oe."

"Yes, old chap, and the next time you have a walk I advise you to walk
all round the H."

[Illustration: H. J. BYRON.]

In those merry gatherings I recall the familiar features of true
Bohemians, when Bohemianism was at its best--not the ornamental names of
those one finds mentioned in all reports of the famous gatherings, but
of the members who really used and made the Club. Few of the outside
public recollect, for instance, the name of Arthur Mathieson, who wrote
and sang that pathetic ballad, "The Little Hero"; who also was an actor
and writer of ability,--in fact, he was what is fatal to men of his
class--a veritable Crichton. Being in appearance not unlike Sir Henry
Irving, he was engaged by our leading actor to play his double in "The
Corsican Brothers," and made up so like his chief that no one could
possibly tell the difference between the two. One evening during the run
of the piece an old Irishwoman who was duster of the theatre, and with
whom the genial double of Sir Henry often had a friendly word,
approached as she thought the familiar M., and in a rather frivolous
mood innocently tickled the actor under the chin with her dusting-broom.

"My good woman, what do you mean?"

The poor Irishwoman dropped on her knees, clasped her hands and said,
"The Saints protect me! it's the Masther himself--I'm kilt entoirely."

The "Masther," however, probably enjoyed the humour of it. Sir Henry,
like his dear old friend Mr. J. L. Toole, has found a relief in
occasional harmless fun. Toole, however, was irrepressible.

[Illustration: A PRESENTATION.]

I was one day walking with him in Leeds (when he was app