He took me across the court
to see his brother Lionel, the head of the firm. Sir Anthony
bowed before him as though the great man were Plutus himself.
He sat at a table alone, not in his own room, but in the
immense counting-room, surrounded by a brigade of clerks.
This was my first introduction to him. He took no notice of
his brother, but received me as Napoleon received the
emperors and kings at Erfurt - in other words, as he would
have received his slippers from his valet, or as he did
receive the telegrams which were handed to him at the rate of
about one a minute.
The King of Kings was in difficulties with a little slip of
black sticking-plaster. The thought of Gumpelino's
Hyacinthos, ALIAS Hirsch, flashed upon me. Behold! the
mighty Baron Nathan come to life again; but instead of
Hyacinthos paring his mightiness's HUHNERAUGEN, he himself,
in paring his own nails, had contrived to cut his finger.
'Come to buy Spanish?' he asked, with eyes intent upon the
sticking-plaster.
'Oh no,' said I, 'I've no money to gamble with.'
'Hasn't Lord Leicester bought Spanish?' - never looking off
the sticking-plaster, nor taking the smallest notice of the
telegrams.
'Not that I know of. Are they good things?'
'I don't know; some people think so.'
Here a message was handed in, and something was whispered in
his ear.
'Very well, put it down.'
'From Paris,' said Sir Anthony, guessing perhaps at its
contents.
But not until the plaster was comfortably adjusted did Plutus
read the message. He smiled and pushed it over to me. It
was the terms of peace, and the German bill of costs.
'200,000,000 pounds!' I exclaimed. 'That's a heavy
reckoning. Will France ever be able to pay it?'
'Pay it? Yes. If it had been twice as much!' And Plutus
returned to his sticking-plaster. That was of real
importance.
Last autumn - 1904, the literary world was not a little
gratified by an announcement in the 'Times' that the British
Museum had obtained possession of the original manuscript of
Keats's 'Hyperion.' Let me tell the story of its discovery.
During the summer of last year, my friend Miss Alice Bird,
who was paying me a visit at Longford, gave me this account
of it.
When Leigh Hunt's memoirs were being edited by his son
Thornton in 1861, he engaged the services of three intimate
friends of the family to read and collate the enormous mass
of his father's correspondence. Miss Alice Bird was one of
the chosen three. The arduous task completed, Thornton Hunt
presented each of his three friends with a number of
autographic letters, which, according to Miss Bird's
description, he took almost at random from the eliminated
pile.
