prised to hear
him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you
wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that
little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking
everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and
elsewhere, and they show me other things, but not the funny nigger I
recollect, so I have given up my search in despair."

I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner
a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history
of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than
anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a
subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an
interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in
connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties
of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old
days.

In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he
seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He
seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would
show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked:

"You young men will have a very bad time of it."

[Illustration]

It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of
Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the
first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained
office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and
delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering
into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting
for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P.
for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's
Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich
Soirees" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor
packed with his many friends--a characteristic, polyglot gathering of
Ministers and Parliamentarians of all kinds, musicians, dramatists,
authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, recited, and gave a
gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted as his hon.
secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern paintings
on the walls, besides designing the invitations)--I recollect the
greatest success