int of the War
Office may be seen at the top of the second finger--in itself perhaps a
premonition that he would one day be the controlling force of that great
department.

Lord Kitchener was at that moment Sirdar of the Egyptian Army. He had
returned to England to tender his resignation on account of some hostile
criticism about "the Abbas affair," and so I took the opportunity of his
being in England to ask him to allow me to add his hand to my collection,
which even then included some of the most famous men and women of the
day.

As Mr. T.P. O'Connor, in writing recently of Lord Kitchener, said: "One
of his greatest qualities, at once useful and charming, is his
accessibility. Anybody who has anything to say to him can approach him;
anybody who has anything to teach him will find a ready and grateful
learner."

My experience can indeed bear out the truth of this clear judgment of one
of the leading traits in Lord Kitchener's character. That very year,
1894, was a notable one in his life; his strong-willed action over the
Abbas affair was completely vindicated; he was made a K.C.M.G., and
returned to Egypt with more power than ever.

Once in his presence he put me completely at my ease, and in a few
moments he appeared to be deeply interested in observing the difference
between the lines in his own clearly-marked palm and those in dozens of
other impressions that I put before him.

He was then almost forty-four years of age, and I remember well how I
explained the still higher positions and responsibilities that his path
of Destiny mapped out before him. The heaviest and greatest of all would,
I told him, be undertaken in his sixty-fourth year (1914), but how little
either of us thought then that in that year the most terrible war of the
century would have broken out.

Believing, as I do, in the Law of Periodicity playing as great a role in
the lives of individuals as it does in nations, it is strange to notice
that the same radix numbers that governed Lord Kitchener's career when he
was planning out the Egyptian campaign, which resulted in his great
victories of Atbara and Omdurman in 1896 and 1897, are exactly the same
for him in 1914-1915, and 1916 gives again the same radix number that in
1898 saw him receive a vote of thanks from both Houses of Parliament, and
a gift of L30,000 from the State.

From the standpoint of those interested in this strange study of hands,
the accompanying impression of Lord Kit