n full
from the tap in the court, Alfred fetching the rest. When anyone
expostulated with him about cooking his own breakfast and fetching
his own water, he replied that it was good for him to have a change
of occupation. This was partly the fact, but the real reason, which
he could not tell everyone, was that he shrank from inconveniencing
anybody; he always paid more than was necessary when anything was
done for him, and was not happy then unless he did some of the work
himself.

At 5.30 he got his evening meal, he called it his tea, and it was
little more than a facsimile of breakfast. Alfred left in time to
post the letters before six. Butler then wrote music till about 8,
when he came to see me in Staple Inn, returning to Clifford's Inn by
about 10. After a light supper, latterly not more than a piece of
toast and a glass of milk, he played one game of his own particular
kind of Patience, prepared his breakfast things and fire ready for
the next morning, smoked his seventh and last cigarette, and went to
bed at eleven o'clock.

He was fond of the theatre, but avoided serious pieces. He
preferred to take his Shakespeare from the book, finding that the
spirit of the plays rather evaporated under modern theatrical
treatment. In one of his books he brightens up the old illustration
of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark by putting it thus: "If the
character of Hamlet be entirely omitted, the play must suffer, even
though Henry Irving himself be cast for the title-role." Anyone
going to the theatre in this spirit would be likely to be less
disappointed by performances that were comic or even frankly
farcical. Latterly, when he grew slightly deaf, listening to any
kind of piece became too much of an effort; nevertheless, he
continued to the last the habit of going to one pantomime every
winter.

There were about twenty houses where he visited, but he seldom
accepted an invitation to dinner--it upset the regularity of his
life; besides, he belonged to no club and had no means of returning
hospitality. When two colonial friends called unexpectedly about
noon one day, soon after he settled in London, he went to the
nearest cook-shop in Fetter Lane and returned carrying a dish of hot
roast pork and greens. This was all very well once in a way, but
not the sort of thing to be repeated indefinitely.

On Thursdays, instead of going to the Museum, he often took a day
off, going into the country sketching or w