for sheer rapidity, I have never
known Payn's equal. When a casual word annoyed him, his repartee
flashed out like lightning. I could give plenty of instances, but to
make them intelligible I should have to give a considerable amount of
introduction, and that would entirely spoil the sense of flashing
rapidity. There was no appreciable interval of time between the
provoking word and the repartee which it provoked.

Another great element of charm in Payn was his warm love of Life,

"And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world."

While he hated the black and savage and sordid side of existence with a
passionate hatred, he enjoyed all its better--which he believed to be
its larger--part with an infectious relish. Never have I known a more
blithe and friendly spirit; never a nature to which Literature and
Society--books and men--yielded a more constant and exhilarating joy. He
had unstinted admiration for the performances of others, and was wholly
free from jealousy. His temperament indeed was not equable. He had ups
and downs, bright moods and dark, seasons of exaltation and seasons of
depression. The one succeeded the other with startling rapidity, but the
bright moods triumphed, and it was impossible to keep him permanently
depressed. His health had always been delicate, but illness neither
crushed his spirit nor paralysed his pen. Once he broke a blood-vessel
in the street, and was conveyed home in an ambulance. During the
transit, though he was in some danger of bleeding to death, he began to
compose a narrative of his adventure, and next week it appeared in the
_Illustrated London News_.

During the last two years of his life he was painfully crippled by
arthritic rheumatism, and could no longer visit the Reform Club, where
for many years he had every day eaten his luncheon and played his
rubber. Determining that he should not completely lose his favourite, or
I should rather say his only, amusement, some members of the Club banded
themselves together to supply him with a rubber in his own house twice a
week; and this practice was maintained to his death. It was a striking
testimony to the affection which he inspired. In those years I was a
pretty frequent visitor, and, on my way to the house, I used to bethink
me of stories which might amuse him, and I used even to note them down
between one visit and another, as a provision for next time. One day
Payn said, "A collection of your stories would make a