"rather mad." However, if I'm not sure what he thought about
Montaigne I'm convinced he admired Saint-Simon. A certain feeling
for letters must have rubbed off on him from the mere handling of
his master's books, which he was always carrying to and fro and
putting back in their places.

I often noticed that if an anecdote or a quotation, much more a
lively discussion, was going forward, he would, if busy with the
fire or the curtains, the lamp or the tea, find a pretext for
remaining in the room till the point should be reached. If his
purpose was to catch it you weren't discreet, you were in fact
scarce human, to call him off, and I shall never forget a look, a
hard stony stare--I caught it in its passage--which, one day when
there were a good many people in the room, he fastened upon the
footman who was helping him in the service and who, in an
undertone, had asked him some irrelevant question. It was the only
manifestation of harshness I ever observed on Brooksmith's part,
and I at first wondered what was the matter. Then I became
conscious that Mr. Offord was relating a very curious anecdote,
never before perhaps made so public, and imparted to the narrator
by an eye-witness of the fact, bearing on Lord Byron's life in
Italy. Nothing would induce me to reproduce it here, but
Brooksmith had been in danger of losing it. If I ever should
venture to reproduce it I shall feel how much I lose in not having
my fellow auditor to refer to.

The first day Mr Offord's door was closed was therefore a dark date
in contemporary history. It was raining hard and my umbrella was
wet, but Brooksmith received it from me exactly as if this were a
preliminary for going upstairs. I observed however that instead of