_Was_ to tell du Maurier and me."

[Illustration]

What with the boxing-gloves and one thing and another, he had been
"getting English again by degrees." In a drawing he shows us how he
is going through the process arm-in-arm with his old friend, Tom
Armstrong, now the Art-Director of that very English institution, the
South Kensington Museum. Armstrong and T.R. Lamont, the man who to
this day bears such a striking resemblance to our friend the Laird,
had presented du Maurier with a complete edition of Edgar Allan Poe's
works. His appreciation of that author is expressed in a letter which
he addressed to Armstrong, and it needs not much reading between the
lines to gather what was the literary diet best suited to his taste.
It is amusing, too, to notice the little shadows cast here and there
by coming events.

(Billy Barlow was, I really don't know why, for the time being,
synonymous with George du Maurier.)

"Gulielmus Barlow, Thomasino Armstrong,
Whom we hope is 'gaillardement' getting along
And salubrious, ave!

You'll wonder, I ween,
At Barlow's turning topsy-tur--poet I mean.
I take odds you'll exclaim, 'twixt a grunt and a stare,
'Gottferdummi' the beggar's gone mad, I declare,
And his wits must have followed his 'peeper'--not so;
He will give you the wherefore, will William Barlow--