e had served the Midland faithfully, with a
single eye to its interests, and good wishes followed him in his
retirement. Mr. Nugent was a small man, that is physically, but
intellectually was well endowed. He had scholarly tastes and business
ability in pretty equal parts. Movement and activity he loved, and, as
he often told me, preferred a holiday in Manchester or Birmingham to the
Riviera or Italian Lakes. He liked to be occupied, was fond of details,
and possessed a lively curiosity. Sometimes he was thought, as a
chairman, to err in the direction of too rigid economy, but on a railway
such as the Midland, and in a country such as Ireland, economy was and is
an excellent thing, and if he erred, it was on the right side. Truth,
candour, courage and enthusiasm marked his character in a high degree.
Fearless in speech, the art of dissimulation he never learned. I shall
not readily forget a speech he once made at the Railway Companies'
Association in London. It was on an occasion of great importance, when
all the principal companies of the United Kingdom were present. It was
altogether unpremeditated, provoked by other speeches with which he
disagreed, and its directness and courage--for it was a bold and frank
expression of honest conviction, such as tells in any assembly--created
some stir and considerable comment. Of plain homely mother-wit he had an
uncommon share, and his mind was stored with quotations which came out in
his talk with wonderful ease and aptness. A shrewd observer, his
comments (always good-natured if critical) on his fellow men were worth
listening to.

Our almost daily intercourse was intimate and frank. Sometimes we
wandered into the pleasant fields of poetry and literature, but never to
the neglect of business. He had an advantage that I greatly envied; a
splendid memory; could repeat verse after verse, stanza upon stanza,
whole cantos almost, from his favourite poet, Byron. It was at the half-
yearly meetings of shareholders (they were held half-yearly in his day)
that he specially shone, not in his address to them (for that he _would_
persist in reading) but in the after proceedings when the heckling began.
This, during his chairmanship, was often severe enough, for owing to
unavoidably increased expenditure, dividends were diminishing and
shareholders, in consequence, were in anything but complacent mood.
Question time always put him on his mettle. Then his mother-wit came
out,