ight angles to the sides of the
instrument, but in an oblique direction. Though in some respects
inferior to the violin, it is in other respects superior to it. Sinfi's
performances on this remarkable instrument showed her to be a musical
genius of a high order.

VII. MY FIRST MEETING WITH BORROW.

But I am not leaving myself much room for personal reminiscences of
Borrow after all--though these are what I sat down to write.

Dr. Hake, in his memoirs of "Eighty Years," records thus the first
meeting between Borrow and myself at Roehampton, at the doctor's own
delightful house, whose windows at the back looked over Richmond Park,
and in front over the wildest part of Wimbledon Common.

"Later on, George Borrow turned up while Watts was there, and we went
through a pleasant trio, in which Borrow, as was his wont, took the
first fiddle. The reader must not here take metaphor for music.
Borrow made himself very agreeable to Watts, recited a fairy tale in
the best style to him, and liked him."

There is, however, no doubt that Borrow would have run away from me had I
been associated in his mind with the literary calling. But at that time
I had written nothing at all save poems, and a prose story or two of a
romantic kind, and even these, though some of the poems have since
appeared, were then known only through private circulation.

About me there was nothing of the literary flavour: no need to flee away
from me as he fled from the writing fraternity. He had not long before
this refused to allow Dr. Hake to introduce the late W. R. S. Ralston to
him, simply because the Russian scholar moved in the literary world.

With regard to newspaper critiques of books his axiom was that "whatever
is praised by the press is of necessity bad," and he refused to read
anything that was so praised.

After the "fairy tale" mentioned by Dr. Hake was over, we went, at
Borrow's suggestion, for a ramble through Richmond Park, calling on the
way at the "Bald-Faced Stag" in Kingston Vale, in order that Borrow
should introduce me to Jerry Abershaw's sword, which was one of the
special glories of that once famous hostelry. A divine summer day it was
I remember--a day whose heat would have been oppressive had it not been
tempered every now and then by a playful silvery shower falling from an
occasional wandering cloud, whose slate-coloured body thinned at the
edges to a fringe of lace brighter than any silver.