re into this thing. How long is
the Queen's family likely to hold out? Who comes next on the list?"

"Their Royal Highnesses the Duke of Cambridge, the Princess Royal,
Prince Arthur, Princess Mary of Teck, Prince Leopold, the Grand-duke of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the Grand-duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Prince
..."

"Hold! There's a limit to human endurance. I am only mortal. What man
dare do, I dare; but he who can celebrate this family in detail, and
live to tell it, is less or more than man. If you have to go through
this every year, it is a mercy I was born in America, for I haven't
constitution enough to be an Englishman. I shall have to withdraw from
this enterprise. I am out of drinks. Out of drinks, and so many more to
celebrate! Out of drinks, and only just on the outskirts of the family
yet, as you may say! I am sorry enough to have to withdraw, but it is
plain enough that it has to be done. I am full of gas, and my teeth are
loose, and I am wrenched with cramps, and afflicted with scurvy, and
toothache, measles, mumps, and lockjaw, and the cider last night has
given me the cholera. Gentlemen, I mean well; but really I am not in a
condition to celebrate the other birthdays. Give us a rest."

SIR JOHN WATERS
[Sidenote: _Captain Gronow_]

Amongst the distinguished men in the Peninsular War whom my memory
brings occasionally before me, is the well-known and highly popular
Quartermaster-General Sir John Waters, who was born at Margam, a Welsh
village in Glamorganshire. He was one of those extraordinary persons
that seem created by kind nature for particular purposes; and, without
using the word in an offensive sense, he was the most admirable spy that
was ever attached to an army. One would almost have thought that the
Spanish War was entered upon and carried on in order to display his
remarkable qualities. He could assume the character of Spaniards of
every degree and station, so as to deceive the most acute of those whom
he delighted to imitate. In the posada of the village he was hailed by
the contrabandist or the muleteer as one of their own race; in the gay
assemblies he was an accomplished hidalgo; at the bullfight the toreador
received his congratulations as from one who had encountered the toro in
the arena; in the church he would converse with the friar upon the
number of Ave Marias and Paternosters which could lay a ghost, or tell
him the history of every one who had perished by the flame of the
I