again, I will have a pink and silver, or a blue and silver;" and they
keep their resolutions.'

Another characteristic anecdote betrays his ill-suppressed vexation:--

'I laughed at myself prodigiously the other day for a piece of absence.
I was writing, on the king's birthday, and being disturbed with the mob
in the street, I rang for the porter and with an air of grandeur, as if
I was still at Downing Street, cried, "Pray send away those marrow-bones
and cleavers."

The poor fellow, with the most mortified air in the world, replied,
"Sir, they are not at _our_ door, but over the way, at my Lord
Carteret's."--"Oh!" said I, "then let them alone; may be, he does not
dislike the noise!" I pity the poor porter, who sees all his old
customers going over the way too.'

The retirement of Sir Robert from office had an important effect on the
tastes and future life of his son Horace. The minister had been
occupying his later years in pulling down his old ancestral house at
Houghton, and in building an enormous mansion, which has since his time
been, in its turn, partially demolished. When Harley, Earl of Orford,
was known to be erecting a great house for himself, Sir Robert had
remarked that a minister who did so committed a great imprudence. When
Houghton was begun, Sir Hynde Aston reminded Sir Robert of this speech.
'You ought to have recalled it to me before,' was the reply; 'for before
I began building, it might have been of use to me.'

This famous memorial of Walpolean greatness, this splendid folly,
constructed, it is generally supposed, on public money, was inhabited by