At first it was
impossible to guess what had happened. Were we rammed, or
were we rammers? I pulled off my coats ready for a swim.
But it soon became apparent that we had run into and sunk
another boat.
The next morning the doctor and I went on to England. A week
after I took up the 'Illustrated News.' There was an account
of the accident, with an illustration of the cabin of the
sunken boat. The bodies of passengers were depicted as the
divers had found them.
On the very day the peace was signed I chanced to call on Sir
Anthony Rothschild in New Court. He took me across the court
to see his brother Lionel, the head of the firm. Sir Anthony
bowed before him as though the great man were Plutus himself.
He sat at a table alone, not in his own room, but in the
immense counting-room, surrounded by a brigade of clerks.
This was my first introduction to him. He took no notice of
his brother, but received me as Napoleon received the
emperors and kings at Erfurt - in other words, as he would
have received his slippers from his valet, or as he did
receive the telegrams which were handed to him at the rate of
about one a minute.
The King of Kings was in difficulties with a little slip of
black sticking-plaster. The thought of Gumpelino's
Hyacinthos, ALIAS Hirsch, flashed upon me. Behold! the
mighty Baron Nathan come to life again; but instead of
Hyacinthos paring his mightiness's HUHNERAUGEN, he himself,
in paring his own nails, had contrived to cut his finger.
'Come to buy Spanish?' he asked, with eyes intent upon the
sticking-plaster.
'Oh no,' said I, 'I've no money to gamble with.'
'Hasn't Lord Leicester bought Spanish?' - never looking off
the sticking-plaster, nor taking the smallest notice of the
telegrams.
'Not that I know of. Are they good things?'
'I don't know; some people think so.'
Here a message was handed in, and something was whispered in
his ear.
'Very well, put it down.'
'From Paris,' said Sir Anthony, guessing perhaps at its
contents.
But not until the plaster was comfortably adjusted did Plutus
read the message. He smiled and pushed it over to me. It
was the terms of peace, and the German bill of costs.
'200,000,000 pounds!' I exclaimed. 'That's a heavy
reckoning. Will France ever be able to pay it?'
'Pay it? Yes. If it had been twice as much!' And Plutus
returned to his sticking-plaster. That was of real
importance.
Last autumn - 1904, the literary world was not a little
gratified by an announcement in the 'Times' that the British
Museum had obtained possession of the original manuscript of
Keats's 'Hyperion.' Let me tell the story of its discovery.
During the summer of last year, my friend Miss Alice Bird,
who was paying me a visit at Longford, gave me this account
of it.
When Leigh Hunt's memoirs were being edited by his son
Thornton in 1861, he engaged the services of three intimate
friends of the family to read and collate the enormous mass
of his father's correspondence. Miss Alice Bird was one of
the chosen three. The arduous task completed, Thornton Hunt
presented each of his three friends with a number of
autographic letters, which, according to Miss Bird's
description, he took almost at random from the eliminated
pile. Amongst the lot that fell to Miss Bird's share was a
roll of stained paper tied up with tape. This she was led to
suppose - she never carefully examined it - might be either a
copy or a draft of some friend's unpublished poem.
The unknown treasure was put away in a drawer with the rest.
Here it remained undisturbed for forty-three years. Having
now occasion to remove these papers, she opened the forgotten
scroll, and was at once struck both with the words of the
'Hyperion,' and with the resemblance of the writing to
Keats's.
She forthwith consulted the Keepers of the Manuscripts in the
British Museum, with the result that her TROUVAILLE was
immediately identified as the poet's own draft of the
'Hyperion.' The responsible authorities soon after, offered
the fortunate possessor five hundred guineas for the
manuscript, but courteously and honestly informed her that,
were it put up to auction, some American collector would be
almost sure to give a much larger sum for it.
Miss Bird's patriotism prevailed over every other
consideration. She expressed her wish that the poem should
be retained in England; and generously accepted what was
indubitably less than its market value.
CHAPTER XLVII
A MAN whom I had known from my school-days, Frederick
Thistlethwayte, coming into a huge fortune when a subaltern
in a marching regiment, had impulsively married a certain
Miss Laura Bell. In her early days, when she made her first
appearance in London and in Paris, Laura Bell's extraordinary
beauty was as much admired by painters as by men of the
world. Amongst her reputed lovers were Dhuleep Singh, the
famous Marquis of Hertford, and Prince Louis Napoleon. She
was the daughter of an Irish constable, and began life on the
stage at Dublin. Her Irish wit and sparkling merriment, her
cajolery, her good nature and her feminine artifice, were
attractions which, in the eyes of the male sex, fully atoned
for her youthful indiscretions.
My intimacy with both Mr. and Mrs. Thistlethwayte extended
over many years; and it is but justice to her memory to aver
that, to the best of my belief, no wife was ever more
faithful to her husband. I speak of the Thistlethwaytes here
for two reasons - absolutely unconnected in themselves, yet
both interesting in their own way.
