ised when I tell you his name,
because he is a popular, successful, and, many people hold, a very
agreeable man. It is that ornament of the Bar, Mr. William Welbore,
K.C. His boy is in my house; and Mr. Welbore (who is a widower) invited
himself to stay a Sunday with me in the tone of one who, if anything,
confers a favour. I had no real reason for refusing, and, to speak
truth, any evasion on my part would have been checked by the boy.

It is a fearful bore here to have any one staying in the house at all,
unless he is so familiar an old friend that you can dispense with all
ceremony. I have no guest-rooms to speak of; and a guest is always in
my study when I want to be there, talking when I want to work, or
wanting to smoke at inconvenient times. One's study is also one's
office; boys keep dropping in, and, when I have an unperceptive guest,
I have to hold interviews with boys wherever I can--in passages and
behind doors. What made it worse was that it was a wet Sunday, so that
my visitor sate with me all day, and I have no doubt thought he was
enlivening a dull professional man with some full-flavoured
conversation. Then one has to arrange for separate meals; when I am
alone I never, as you know, have dinner, but go in to the boys' supper
and have a slice of cold meat. But on this occasion I had to have a
dinner-party on Saturday and another on Sunday; and the breakfast hour,
when I expect to read letters and the paper, was taken up with general
conversation. I am ashamed to think how much discomposed I was; but a
schoolmaster is practically always on duty. I wonder how Mr. Welbore
would have enjoyed the task of entertaining me for a day or two in his
chambers! But one ought not, I confess, to be so wedded to one's own
habits; and I feel, when I complain, rather like the rich gentleman who
said to John Wesley, when his fire smoked, "These are some of the
crosses, Mr. Wesley, that I have to bear."

I could have stood it with more equanimity if only Mr. Welbore had been
a congenial guest. But even in the brief time at my disposal I grew to
dislike him with an intensity of which I am ashamed. I hated his
clothes, his boots, his eye-glass, the way he cleared his throat, the
way he laughed. He is a successful, downright, blunt, worldly man, and
is generally called a good fellow by his friends. He arrived in time
for tea on Saturday; he talked about his boy a little; the man is in
this case, unlike Wordsworth's hero, the