Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked
Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--
Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--
The shoeless legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted
wine--Ceylon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public
interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John
Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--
W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary
hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay

CHAPTER VIII

The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--
Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family
from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the
oath--Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of
information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The
innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--
The jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some
of his experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles'
experiments on myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the
Philosopher's Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture--
Glamis Castle and its inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr.
Gladstone at Glamis--He sings in the glees--The castle and its
treasures--Recollections of Glamis

CHAPTER IX

Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British