l me, 'an' slep'
there once.' He knew me to be a native of that city, and, for he was the
most respectful of men, did not make any adverse criticism of it. But
clearly it had not prepossessed him. Men and--horses rather than cities
were what he knew. And his memory was more retentive of horses than of
men. But he did--and this was a great thrill for me--did, after some
pondering at my behest, remember to have seen in Heath Street, when he
was a boy, 'a gen'leman with summut long hair, settin' in a small cart,
takin' a pictur'.' To me Ford Madox Brown's 'Work' is of all modern
pictur's the most delightful in composition and strongest in conception,
the most alive and the most worth-while; and I take great pride in
having known some one who saw it in the making. But my friend himself
set little store on anything that had befallen him in days before he
was 'took on as stable-lad at the Castle.' His pride was in the Castle,
wholly.

Part of his charm, like Hampstead's, was in the surprise one had at
finding anything like it so near to London. Even now, if you go to
districts near which no great towns are, you will find here and there an
inn that has a devoted waiter, a house with a fond butler. As to butlers
elsewhere, butlers in general, there is one thing about them that I do
not at all understand. It seems to be against nature, yet it is a
fact, that in the past forty years they have been growing younger; and
slimmer. In my childhood they were old, without exception; and stout.
At the close of the last century they had gradually relapsed into middle
age, losing weight all the time. And in the years that followed they
were passing back behind the prime of life, becoming willowy juveniles.
In 1915, it is true, the work of past decades was undone butlers: were
suddenly as old and stout as ever they were, and so they still are.
But this, I take it, is only a temporary setback. At the restoration of
peace butlers will reappear among us as they were in 1915, and anon will
be losing height and weight too, till they shall have become bright-eyed
children, with pattering feet. Or will their childhood be of a less
gracious kind than that? I fear so. I have seen, from time to time,
butlers who had shed all semblance of grace, butlers whose whole
demeanour was a manifesto of contempt for their calling and of devotion
to the Spirit of the Age. I have seen a butler in a well-established
household strolling around the diners without th