him about cooking his own breakfast and fetching his own water, he
replied that it was good for him to have a change of occupation.
This was partly the fact, but the real reason, which he could not
tell everyone, was that he shrank from inconveniencing anybody; he
always paid more than was necessary when anything was done for him,
and was not happy then unless he did some of the work himself.

At 5.30 he got his evening meal, he called it his tea, and it was
little more than a facsimile of breakfast. Alfred left in time to
post the letters before six. Butler then wrote music till about 8,
when he came to see me in Staple Inn, returning to Clifford's Inn by
about 10. After a light supper, latterly not more than a piece of
toast and a glass of milk, he played one game of his own particular
kind of Patience, prepared his breakfast things and fire ready for
the next morning, smoked his seventh and last cigarette, and went to
bed at eleven o'clock.

He was fond of the theatre, but avoided serious pieces. He preferred
to take his Shakespeare from the book, finding that the spirit of the
plays rather evaporated under modern theatrical treatment. In one of
his books he brightens up the old illustration of 'Hamlet' without
the Prince of Denmark by putting it thus: "If the character of
Hamlet be entirely omitted, the play must suffer, even though Henry
Irving himself be cast for the title-role." Anyone going to the
theatre in this spirit would be likely to be less disappointed by
performances that were comic or even frankly farcical. Latterly,
when he grew slightly deaf, listening to any kind of piece became too
much of an effort; nevertheless, he continued to the last the habit
of going to one pantomime every winter.