rged, and I propose to give, from my
own recollection, some features of it. Lord Cromer was the author of six
or seven published volumes, but these are before the public, and it is
needless to speak much about them. What may be found more interesting
are a few impressions of his attitude towards books and towards ideas.

On the first occasion on which I met him, he was characteristic. It was
some fifteen years ago, at the time when the brilliant young politicians
who called themselves (or were rather ineptly called) the Hooligans had
the graceful habit of asking some of their elders to dine with them in a
private room of the House of Commons. At one of these little dinners the
only guests were Lord Cromer and myself. I had never seen him before,
and I regarded him with some awe and apprehension, but no words had
passed between us, when the division-bell rang, and our youthful hosts
darted from the room.

The moment we were left alone, Lord Cromer looked across the deserted
tablecloth and said quietly, as though he were asking me to pass the
salt, "Where is Bipontium?" I was driven by sheer fright into an
exercise of intelligence, and answered at once, "I should think it must
be the Latin for Zweibruecken. Why?" "Oh! I saw this afternoon that my
edition of Diodorus Siculus was printed _ex typographia societatis
Bipontinae_, and I couldn't imagine for the life of me what 'Bipontium'
was. No doubt you're quite right." Nothing could be more characteristic
of Lord Cromer's habit of mind than this sudden revulsion of ideas. His
active brain needed no preparation to turn from subject to subject, but
seemed to be always ready, at a moment's notice, to take up a fresh
line of thought with ardour. What it could not endure was to be left
stranded with no theme on which to expatiate. In succeeding years, when
it was often my daily enjoyment to listen to Lord Cromer's desultory
conversation, as it leaped from subject to subject, I often thought of
the alarming way in which "Bipontium" had pounced upon me at the
dinner-table in the House of Commons.

Some years passed before I had the privilege of renewing my experience
of that evening. It was not until after his retirement from Egypt in the
autumn of 1907 that I saw him again, and not then for some months. He
returned, it will be remembered, in broken health. He used to say that
when King Edward VII. wrote out to Cairo, strongly pressing him to stay,
he had replied, in the words o