SHAW promptly.

* * * * *

Dr. Brotherton told me that he was once with MATTHEW ARNOLD in an
election crowd at Oxford, when the Professor of Poetry accidentally
collided with a working-man flown with Radicalism and beer. "Go to
blazes!" said the proletarian. "My friend," replied ARNOLD, "we are
well met. In me you see the official representative of Literature,
whereas you, I perceive, stand for Dogma."

* * * * *

Mrs. Brown of Newquay, who claims to be the original _Mrs.
Partington_, told me that SYDNEY SMITH'S last years were overclouded
by his inability to discover the riddle to which the answer is
contained in the words, "The one rode a horse and the other rode a
dendron."

* * * * *

Probably few people remember a Nottinghamshire poet of an earlier
day who fulfilled with much conscientiousness the duties of local
laureate. It was the age of Notts's pre-eminence in cricket, and that,
with other reasons, inspired the bard to write some verses which
opened with the line, "Is there a county to compare with Notts?" The
county of Derby was jealous of its neighbour in other things besides
sport, and considered itself to have scored when its own tame minstrel
retorted with a parody ending:--