natural
sequence on such an exordium. "What's the matter?" replied Mill as
soon as he could get a word in. "M----[the director] was quite right.
The petition was the joint work of ---- and myself."--"How can you be
so perverse?" I retorted. "You know that I know you wrote every word of
it."--"No," rejoined Mill, "you are mistaken: one whole line on the
second page was put in by----."

In August, 1858, the East-India Company's doom was pronounced by
Parliament. The East-India House was completely re-organized, its very
name being changed into that of the India Office, and a Secretary of
State in Council taking the place of the Court of Directors. But a
change of scarcely secondary importance to many of those immediately
concerned was Mill's retirement on a pension. A few months after he
had left us an attempt was made to bring him back. At that time only
one-half of the Council were nominated by the Crown, the other half
having been elected, and the law prescribing that any vacancy among
these latter should be filled by election on the part of the remaining
elected members. On the first occasion of the kind that occurred,
Mill was immediately proposed; and I had the honor of being
commissioned to sound him on the subject of the intended offer, and to
endeavor to overcome the objections to acceptance which it was feared
he might entertain. I went accordingly to his house at Blackheath, but
had no sooner broached the subject than I saw that my mission was
hopeless. The anguish of his recent bereavement was as yet too fresh.
He sought eagerly for some slight alleviation of despair in hard
literary labor; but to face the outside world was for the present
impossible.

Here my scanty record must end, unless I may be permitted to
supplement its meagreness by one or two personal--not to say
egotistical--reminiscences. The death of Mr. Mill senior, in 1836, had
occasioned a vacancy at the bottom of the examiner's office, to which
I was appointed through the kindness of Sir James Carnac, then
chairman of the Company, in whose gift it was. Within a few months,
however, I was transferred to a newly-created branch of the
secretary's office; owing to which cause, and perhaps also to a little
(or not a little) mutual shyness, I for some years came so seldom into
contact with Mr. Mill, that, though he of course knew me by sight, we
scarcely ever spoke, and generally passed each other without any mark
of recognition when we happened