ary improvement
became worse. Pneumonia succeeded, and so rapidly strengthened that on
Wednesday morning the patient dictated a message, and in the afternoon
the doctors, by wireless telegram, informed his family at home of his
condition, and asked them to meet the boat. Mr. and Mrs. Ernest
Halford, Dr. C. R. Box, and Mr. Bertie Brown accordingly caught the
midnight train to Plymouth, rushed on board a tender that was on the
point of starting, and boarded the _Morea_ at just before nine o'clock.
Mr. Halford was able to recognise his son and daughter, conversed a
little at intervals, but with difficulty, and became alarmingly worse
after a slight rally about one o'clock. He was passing away peacefully
during the afternoon as the ship came up the Thames, and died in his
son's arms as she was entering Tilbury Docks.

No man is perfect; many are perfect in parts; some are almost perfect.
But the broad fact faces us that we must not say of any man that he is
perfect. There is a word, however, that years ago I applied to my
friend when I had learned to know and form a loving estimate of him.
He was thorough--thorough in his likes and dislikes, in his work, in
his play, in great things, in small things, in his common sense, in the
things he knew, in the things he did, in his many merits, in the clear
mind that planned no less than the deft hand that executed, in the
privacy of the home, and in the brazen bustle of the world of business.
That is how I long looked at F. M. Halford. He was just a specimen of
a real man, the man you can respect, admire, and trust; and, should you
know him well enough, you may add your love without being foolish. I
grant you Halford was one of those men who require knowing, but that is
another matter. It was my good fortune to be an intimate friend of
over thirty years' standing. I was asked to supply the _Field_ with
this "appreciation"; for me, therefore, it is to justify my high
opinion, and to praise him. This I do with all my heart, keeping
myself in hand nevertheless the while, and not permitting the dolour of
Willesden Cemetery to act in favour of him there laid to his rest.

But a man may be thorough, and at the same time we should not object if
he kept his thoroughness all to himself. Halford was not of that kind.
He was a delightful companion--generous, big-hearted, amusing, a sayer
of good things in a human way, and finely opinionated, which, of
course, was not a serious matte