accuse Archdeacon Wilberforce of stealing my hat--I should not think of
it. I confine that phrase to myself. He merely took my hat.
And with good judgment, too--it was a better hat than his. He came out
before the luncheon was over, and sorted the hats in the hall, and
selected one which suited. It happened to be mine. He went off with it.
When I came out by-and-by there was no hat there which would go on my
head except his, which was left behind. My head was not the customary
size just at that time. I had been receiving a good many very nice and
complimentary attentions, and my head was a couple of sizes larger than
usual, and his hat just suited me. The bumps and corners were all right
intellectually. There were results pleasing to me--possibly so to him.
He found out whose hat it was, and wrote me saying it was pleasant that
all the way home, whenever he met anybody his gravities, his solemnities,
his deep thoughts, his eloquent remarks were all snatched up by the
people he met, and mistaken for brilliant humorisms.

I had another experience. It was not unpleasing. I was received with a
deference which was entirely foreign to my experience by everybody whom I
met, so that before I got home I had a much higher opinion of myself than
I have ever had before or since. And there is in that very connection an
incident which I remember at that old date which is rather melancholy to
me, because it shows how a person can deteriorate in a mere seven years.
It is seven years ago. I have not that hat now. I was going down
Pall-Mall, or some other of your big streets, and I recognized that that
hat needed ironing. I went into a big shop and passed in my hat, and
asked that it might be ironed. They were courteous, very courteous, even
courtly. They brought that hat back to me presently very sleek and nice,
and I asked how much there was to pay. They replied that they did not
charge the clergy anything. I have cherished the delight of that moment
from that day to this. It was the first thing I did the other day to go