XV

In the summer and autumn of 1921 Teixeira enjoyed better health than at any time in the last seven years. He supported without ill-effects the strain of incessant luncheon and dinner-parties during the visit of Couperus to London; he moved from house to house, staying with friends; he completed his unfinished work and laid ambitious schemes for the future.

I have written to Couperus,he told me, 13.5.21, preparing him to be entertained by the Titmarsh Club and by the Asquiths....You might tell me in an early letter what to do in proposing[him]for temporary honorary membership of the Reform Club and when to do it....

I have written to Couperus,he told me, 13.5.21, preparing him to be entertained by the Titmarsh Club and by the Asquiths....

You might tell me in an early letter what to do in proposing[him]for temporary honorary membership of the Reform Club and when to do it....

My dear Stephen,he writes, 16.5.21;My dear Stephen,he repeats;The second allocution sounds almost superfluous; but I will not waste a sheet of Ryman’s priceless Hertford Bank. I intended the “M”of “My dear Stephen” to form the “M” of “Many thanks for your letter of the 14th.” However, you may remember that the only difference between Moses and Manchester is that one ends in -oses and the other in -anchester; and there you are....I am calling on the Netherlands minister at half-past eleven this morning.... Bisschop (of the Anglo-Batavian Society) rang me up on Saturday evening.... There is to be a council-meeting at 4 o’clock on Friday at the International Law Association in King’s Bench Walk.... If you are back by Friday and likely to be at home, I’ll come on to see you from there. And I’ll write to you to-morrow about my call on Van Swinderen....

My dear Stephen,he writes, 16.5.21;

My dear Stephen,he repeats;

The second allocution sounds almost superfluous; but I will not waste a sheet of Ryman’s priceless Hertford Bank. I intended the “M”of “My dear Stephen” to form the “M” of “Many thanks for your letter of the 14th.” However, you may remember that the only difference between Moses and Manchester is that one ends in -oses and the other in -anchester; and there you are....

I am calling on the Netherlands minister at half-past eleven this morning.... Bisschop (of the Anglo-Batavian Society) rang me up on Saturday evening.... There is to be a council-meeting at 4 o’clock on Friday at the International Law Association in King’s Bench Walk.... If you are back by Friday and likely to be at home, I’ll come on to see you from there. And I’ll write to you to-morrow about my call on Van Swinderen....

P.S. to my former letter,he writes on the same day:Van Swinderen was most charming. He at once offered to have the Dutch reading at the legation.... I said that, if Van S. would make it an invitation matter, he would be doing a great honour to C. and giving a very welcome reception to the Dutch colony in London....He leapt at this; said he would give a dinner to twenty of lacrême de la crême; he could manage thirty at two tables; and ask up to a hundred to the reception....Everything is provisional to Mrs. Van Swinderen’s agreement; and I am to lunch there on Friday and hear more....

He leapt at this; said he would give a dinner to twenty of lacrême de la crême; he could manage thirty at two tables; and ask up to a hundred to the reception....

Everything is provisional to Mrs. Van Swinderen’s agreement; and I am to lunch there on Friday and hear more....

When Couperus returned to Holland, my correspondence with Teixeira was suspended. We were meeting or communicating by telephone almost daily; and it was only when we left London to stay with friends that the letters were resumed.

Weather hot and stuffy,he writes, 1.8.21, from Sutton Courtney. Lawns running down to a perfectly full river and absolutely dry: and I with not much to tell you....I am sleeping beautifully and eating lightly; and I feel too indolent for words.Good-bye and bless you!

Weather hot and stuffy,he writes, 1.8.21, from Sutton Courtney. Lawns running down to a perfectly full river and absolutely dry: and I with not much to tell you....

I am sleeping beautifully and eating lightly; and I feel too indolent for words.

Good-bye and bless you!

My wife,he writes, 5.8.21, pictures me surrounded by people who, if she broke my heart by dying, would thrust women of forty on me, “dear, dearest Mr. Tex,” to look after me. Is it not a beautifully witty tag to a letter? I think so....

To my reproach that he had left London without saying good-bye to me, he replies, 16.8.21 with complete justification:

As our logical neighbours across the channel say:“Zut!... Zut!... Et encore zut!...”Had you profited as you ought by the careful bringing up which your kind parents gave you, you would have known that it is for those who go away to say good-bye, for those who arrive to say good-day. You left London before I did. I say no more in reply to your reproaches....If ever you leave London, however, at about the same time as I, remember, will you not, the etiquette (French) and the punctilio (Italian)?...

As our logical neighbours across the channel say:

“Zut!... Zut!... Et encore zut!...”

Had you profited as you ought by the careful bringing up which your kind parents gave you, you would have known that it is for those who go away to say good-bye, for those who arrive to say good-day. You left London before I did. I say no more in reply to your reproaches....

If ever you leave London, however, at about the same time as I, remember, will you not, the etiquette (French) and the punctilio (Italian)?...

... If you think that I have much to tell you,he adds, 20.8.21, you are mistaken. Y’day I went for a stroll, turned up a footpath which I imagined would bring me back here, found that it didn’t, after I had gone much too far to turn back, and plodded on and on—my apprehensive mind full of a picture of myself being devoured by onsticelli and stercoraceous geodurpes amid a fine setting of ferns and bracken—until I reached Abingdon. It might have been Oxford, so exhausted was I.A boy was bribed to fetch me a car and I returned just before the search-party set out for me. I roam no more. There is a lawn here: let me walk up and down it....I do not despair about Ireland because I never despair about anything.And I am ever yours,Tex.

A boy was bribed to fetch me a car and I returned just before the search-party set out for me. I roam no more. There is a lawn here: let me walk up and down it....

I do not despair about Ireland because I never despair about anything.

And I am ever yours,

Tex.

Your letter of the 23rd,he writes, 25.8.21, found me still here. (The Wharf, Sutton Courtney): I go to-morrow to the Norton Priory till Monday ... and longer if they will have me longer. Then back home; and to Sutro’s for a brief week-end on Saturday.Yes, I know Lancaster, its castle, where I have, and its lunatic asylum, where I have never, stayed....It were useless for me to pretend that I have not mislayed your list of addresses. I may find it in some other suit; but you might notify me of your next movement whenever you write. But do not translate m.p.h. as miles per hour. Master of phoxhounds, if you like, or miles per horam; but we English say an hour and not per hour....

Yes, I know Lancaster, its castle, where I have, and its lunatic asylum, where I have never, stayed....

It were useless for me to pretend that I have not mislayed your list of addresses. I may find it in some other suit; but you might notify me of your next movement whenever you write. But do not translate m.p.h. as miles per hour. Master of phoxhounds, if you like, or miles per horam; but we English say an hour and not per hour....

M. sent an enormous 120 h.p. (hocus pocus) land-yacht to meet me at Portsmouth,he writes from Norton Priory, 27.8.21, relieving me of the worst part of the journey.... N. arrived from town before dinner, bringing with him a ... stockbroker.... They go up on Monday morning, but I stay on till Wednesday, likea gay limpet but a perfectly moral: M’s brother comes down on Monday.For the rest, I have the same room, but have not yet cracked my skull against the canopy of the same fourposter; and I am perfectly happy....

For the rest, I have the same room, but have not yet cracked my skull against the canopy of the same fourposter; and I am perfectly happy....

Your original waybill is found,he adds, 30.8.21; but I have the receipt of no letter from you to acknowledge. N. ... went up after breakfast y’day and brother R. M. came down before dinner. He is a pleasant New Zealander and took a lot out of me at bridge.Life here pursues its quiet course. I accompanied M. and W. to the sea’s edge yesterday but found the effort of ploughing through the shingle tolerably exhausting and shall not repeat it to-day. Indeed, the whole family, Miss T. included, are bathing now and I am writing twaddle to you under the pear-tree.And, as I live, I think I’ll write no more. I have no more to say; and the papers have just come. I leave here after lunch (eon) to-morrow, spend an hour or two in Chichester cathedral and arrive home in time for my bread and milk....

Life here pursues its quiet course. I accompanied M. and W. to the sea’s edge yesterday but found the effort of ploughing through the shingle tolerably exhausting and shall not repeat it to-day. Indeed, the whole family, Miss T. included, are bathing now and I am writing twaddle to you under the pear-tree.

And, as I live, I think I’ll write no more. I have no more to say; and the papers have just come. I leave here after lunch (eon) to-morrow, spend an hour or two in Chichester cathedral and arrive home in time for my bread and milk....

On his return to Chelsea and a typewriter, he says, 1.9.21:

You will be pleased to receive a letter from me in legible type, instead of in that hand which isbecoming almost as crabbed as yours. And I continue to address you at Bamborough Castle, though that stronghold figures as something very near Zambuk Castle in your letter of 30 August.N. filled me with fears of internecine feuds within your fortress, of bloody strife for the one shady nook of the orchard and so on. You say nothing of these things; and I assume that there has been no slaughter in your time. There was a horrid game when I became a British kid in the early seventies: I am king of the castle! Get out, you dirty rascal! I trembled at the thought of you and N. playing this game against ruthless border clansmen. All’s well that ends well....I lost twenty goodish guineas at three-handed bridge after Brother Roy arrived. He wanted to can everything on the estate: the apples, the pears, the fleas on the dogs’ backs, the flyaway ducks. He wanted to introduce New Zealand mutton-birds into this country....

N. filled me with fears of internecine feuds within your fortress, of bloody strife for the one shady nook of the orchard and so on. You say nothing of these things; and I assume that there has been no slaughter in your time. There was a horrid game when I became a British kid in the early seventies: I am king of the castle! Get out, you dirty rascal! I trembled at the thought of you and N. playing this game against ruthless border clansmen. All’s well that ends well....

I lost twenty goodish guineas at three-handed bridge after Brother Roy arrived. He wanted to can everything on the estate: the apples, the pears, the fleas on the dogs’ backs, the flyaway ducks. He wanted to introduce New Zealand mutton-birds into this country....

I had a tooth out yesterday,he writes, 3.9.21,—until then I had thirteen of my own left, an unlucky number—and was not at my best.... The tooth was extracted at a high cost, in the presence of a dentist, an anaesthetist and my body-physician but without unpleasant consequences. And this afternoon I go to the Sutros for a brief week-end.I have no news, except that I have bought some most attractive socks, or half-hose....

I have no news, except that I have bought some most attractive socks, or half-hose....

... I have no news,he complains, 12.9.21.I write to you simply out of friendship and duty. I spent five hours at the Zoo y’day.... We lunched there; so did most of the beasts, heavily. You should have seen S. staggering under the weight of about nine pounds of the most expensive oranges, bananas, apples and onions, not to mention sugar, monkey-nuts, and two raw eggs. Say what you will, it is laffable to feed a small monkey with slices of apple till he has both pouches full, all four hands and his mouth. When you hand him the eighth slice, you wait in breathless expectation....I had a tooth extracted last week, reducing the number of my real teeth to twelve. To-day the number of my pseudo-teeth is to be increased to eighteen (quite correct: they swindle you out of a couple) and I propose to lunch at the Reform Club with many gaps in my mouth.I have arranged terms for two luvverly rooms at the Tregenna Castle Hotel, St. Ives, from 1 November to 1 April. Rooms face south, away from the beastly ocean; breakfast in the bedroom; bathsa volonte. We hope to be well and happy there. I must see much of you before you go to Sweden....... I rejoice to hear that you are going to Copenhagen. It is a charming coquette of a little city, with which you will fall head over ears in love.

I had a tooth extracted last week, reducing the number of my real teeth to twelve. To-day the number of my pseudo-teeth is to be increased to eighteen (quite correct: they swindle you out of a couple) and I propose to lunch at the Reform Club with many gaps in my mouth.

I have arranged terms for two luvverly rooms at the Tregenna Castle Hotel, St. Ives, from 1 November to 1 April. Rooms face south, away from the beastly ocean; breakfast in the bedroom; bathsa volonte. We hope to be well and happy there. I must see much of you before you go to Sweden....

... I rejoice to hear that you are going to Copenhagen. It is a charming coquette of a little city, with which you will fall head over ears in love.

Not to take a second risk, I send this to Crosswood,he writes 13.9.21, and I beg you to lay me at the feet of your gracious chatelaine; and, if E. is there, you can give her the love of her Uncle Tex.At the Reform Club ... I played a little bridge ... and won 29/-; then, finding my rate of progress rather slow, I veered off to Cleveland Club and won £7.12.0 more. This satisfied me; and I came home, ate two little fillets of sole, some apple-sauce and custard and (damn the expense) a ha’porth of cheese and so to bed.To complete myDiary of a Nobody, I am glad that you have changed your name from Gowing to Cumming and I amever yours,Tex.

At the Reform Club ... I played a little bridge ... and won 29/-; then, finding my rate of progress rather slow, I veered off to Cleveland Club and won £7.12.0 more. This satisfied me; and I came home, ate two little fillets of sole, some apple-sauce and custard and (damn the expense) a ha’porth of cheese and so to bed.

To complete myDiary of a Nobody, I am glad that you have changed your name from Gowing to Cumming and I am

ever yours,

Tex.

Many thanks for your letter of y’day,he writes, 14.9.21, bearing traces of the pear skin and plumstones therein mentioned, not to speak of a spot of butter and a small burn from your after-brekker cigarette.I have crossed Shap in a swift and powerfulrailway-train, with a whiskered and spectacled judge of the high court, in the opposite seat. I remember old Day’s teaching me how to observe whether one were going up hill or down by watching the roadside rills:“Water invariably flows downwards,” said he, gravely....Ecclefechan I don’t know and don’t want to; Carlisle, I do; Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again. I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural life....To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff and I are going to Hammersmith to hearThe Beggar’s Opera....

I have crossed Shap in a swift and powerfulrailway-train, with a whiskered and spectacled judge of the high court, in the opposite seat. I remember old Day’s teaching me how to observe whether one were going up hill or down by watching the roadside rills:

“Water invariably flows downwards,” said he, gravely....

Ecclefechan I don’t know and don’t want to; Carlisle, I do; Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again. I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural life....

To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff and I are going to Hammersmith to hearThe Beggar’s Opera....

I have again lost your waybill,he writes, 16.9.21, and cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle.The Beggar’s Operawas a great affair.Little has happened to me since.But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland Club.And to-morrow ... ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose nameI do not even know.... I am promised a perfectly good end; but so were any babies of old who ended in being eaten by the ogress.We are never too old for adventures; but pray that I come safely out of this one.

I have again lost your waybill,he writes, 16.9.21, and cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle.

The Beggar’s Operawas a great affair.

Little has happened to me since.

But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland Club.

And to-morrow ... ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose nameI do not even know.... I am promised a perfectly good end; but so were any babies of old who ended in being eaten by the ogress.

We are never too old for adventures; but pray that I come safely out of this one.

On 30.9.21 he writes:

Very many thanks forThe Secret Victory, with the delightful dedication and preface. I am not at all sure that I shall not read the book again.I have just returned from an interview with the local income-tax brigand which filled me with some apprehensions.... After a ... jest or two, I left the brigand’s cave unscathed....I go to the Wharf to-morrow for a week and may stay on a day or two longer, if pressed: I always do, you know....

Very many thanks forThe Secret Victory, with the delightful dedication and preface. I am not at all sure that I shall not read the book again.

I have just returned from an interview with the local income-tax brigand which filled me with some apprehensions.... After a ... jest or two, I left the brigand’s cave unscathed....

I go to the Wharf to-morrow for a week and may stay on a day or two longer, if pressed: I always do, you know....

I had been invited to deliver some lectures in Sweden and Denmark. Teixeira was good enough to read the manuscript of these, as of almost everything I wrote. With his letter of 3.10.21 he returned the first:

Here is your lecture ... I really cannot suggest any cuts. My one and only lecture read 2¾ minutes: this is no reason why yours should notread an hour and a quarter. Does any one want to go and sit in a hall, with free light and warmth thrown in for less than an hour and a quarter? No; the Swedes will admire your fluency and be pleased with you.

On my return to England, he asks, 14.11.21:

When do we meet? We have decided to leave on the 30th. I can lunch with you to-morrow, if you like, and bring you your two Ewald books.

Teixeira’s departure to Cornwall, already delayed by his wife’s illness, had now to be postponed again, as he was prostrated with ptomaine poisoning.

Both invalids were sufficiently recovered to face the journey on 2 December; and, next day, Teixeira sent me news of his safe arrival:

Tregenna Castle Hotel,St. Ives, Cornwall,3 December, 1921.My dear Stephen:Thanks for your letter that reached me just before I left town. This is my address: what else would it be? And the enclosed[an invitation to lecture]is sent to show you that you arenot the only Beppo on the peach (damn your British metaphors!): you might not believe it otherwise. But you may picture the courteous terms in which I declined.There is nothing for nervous dyspepsia or gastric horribobblums like seven goodish hours in a swift and powerful railway-express. I have been free from pain or sickness for the first night since Wednesday week. But I slept little. From 1 a.m. onwards I spent a sleepless, painless night.The hotel is comfortable and commodious in an old-fashioned country-house way; no central heating, but big fires; a certain amount of intrigue with Lizzie the chambermaid to secure a really hot bath: you know the sort of thing; immense grounds, a very park of 100 acres, which I shall never leave, because, if I did, I should never get back: we stand too high.Bless you.Ever yours,Tex.

Tregenna Castle Hotel,St. Ives, Cornwall,3 December, 1921.

My dear Stephen:

Thanks for your letter that reached me just before I left town. This is my address: what else would it be? And the enclosed[an invitation to lecture]is sent to show you that you arenot the only Beppo on the peach (damn your British metaphors!): you might not believe it otherwise. But you may picture the courteous terms in which I declined.

There is nothing for nervous dyspepsia or gastric horribobblums like seven goodish hours in a swift and powerful railway-express. I have been free from pain or sickness for the first night since Wednesday week. But I slept little. From 1 a.m. onwards I spent a sleepless, painless night.

The hotel is comfortable and commodious in an old-fashioned country-house way; no central heating, but big fires; a certain amount of intrigue with Lizzie the chambermaid to secure a really hot bath: you know the sort of thing; immense grounds, a very park of 100 acres, which I shall never leave, because, if I did, I should never get back: we stand too high.

Bless you.

Ever yours,Tex.

It was the last letter that I ever received from him; and on Monday, December the fifth, as I was in the middle of answering it, a telegram informed me that he had died that morning. As he was getting up, he collapsedin his wife’s arms and slipped, unconscious, on the floor. Death was instantaneous and, it may be presumed and hoped, painless. He was buried in the Holy Roman Catholic Cemetery at St. Ives; and a requiem mass for the repose of his soul was said at the Brompton Oratory.

Even those with best cause to suspect how nerveless was his grasp on life could not readily believe that one who loved life so well was to enjoy no more of it. “He was spared old age,” said one friend; but to another Tex had lately confessed that he would like to live for ever.

Before he left London, we said good-bye for five months: he was to winter in Cornwall, I in the West Indies. In seeing again the exquisite handwriting of these many hundreds of letters that commemorate our friendship for the last six years of his life, I at least cannot feel that his voice has grown silent or that his laughter is at an end. The big, solemn figure is vividly present; the favourite phrases and the familiar gestures are stamped for ever on the memory of any one that loved him.

I am writing four thousand miles away from St. Ives: and it may be possible to fancy that he has been ordered to remain there longer than we expected. This time there may be no diary; perhaps the only letters will be those already written; he may seem not to hear all that he once loved hearing; but, wherever he has gone, his personality remains behind.

It was an old-standing bond that the survivor should write of the other. I have tried to make Teixeira paint his own portrait. If his letters have failed to reveal him, what can I add? His literary position is unchallenged; those who knew him how slightly soever knew his humour and wit, his whimsical charm, his understanding and toleration. Those who knew him best had strongest reason for loving him most deeply. Those who knew him not missed knowing a ripe scholar, a fine and tender spirit, a great and gallant gentleman, a matchless companion and the truest friend on earth.

BERBICE,BRITISH GUIANA15 February, 1922.

FOOTNOTES[1]The Jonkheer Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos san Paio y Mendes. The family was Jewish in origin and was driven from Portugal by the persecution of the Holy Office. Teixeira was naturalized a British subject in the middle of the war and gave up his Dutch title. Even before this, he had contracted his full style to Alexander Teixeira de Mattos on ceremonial occasions, to A. Teixeira in departmental correspondence and to Tex or T. in letters to his friends.[2]I quote from Chapter VII ofWhile I Remember, where the genesis of the department is described, though only from hearsay.[3]Even in Teixeira’s wide reading there were occasional gaps; and, until I brought it to his notice, he was unacquainted with the celebrated life of Sir Christopher Wren by Mr. E. Clerihew and Mr. G. K. Chesterton:‘Sir Christopher WrenSaid, “I am going to dine with some men.If anybody callsSay I am designing St. Paul’s.”’After reading it, Teixeira’s nightly valediction as he left for his bridge club was: “I think ... yes, I think I shall design St. Paul’s for an hour or two.”[4]From the notice of his death inThe Times.[5]Future letters were dated from ‘Hellgate’.[6]The Burgomaster of Stillemonde.[7]Frank MacKinnon K.C.[8]A short time before, Teixeira, who affected a loathing for music, had been invited to hear the same quartette. Abandoning his usual gentleness of speech and spirit, he had accepted on condition of being allowed to massacre the quartette.[9]Hymn to Aphrodite.[10]Eimar O’Duffy’sWasted Island.[11]Incidentally, my father lived 85 years, during all of which he never spoke of his particular regiment, brigade, division or army corps as anything but the Coldcream Guards; not in jest but in sheer, manly, gentlemanly ignorance.[12]Perfectly good seventeenth-century English.[13]Even the French write, invariably, un coup d’Etat, le conseil d’Etat, but l’état des coups, l’état du conseil.[14]The Concise Oxford Dictionary.[15]The reference here is to a story illustrative of the tricks which a man’s memory sometimes plays him:Reading in theMorning Post, that Mr. John Brown, of 500 Clarges Street, is shortly leaving for Uganda on a big-game-shooting expedition and would like a gentleman to come with him, sharing expenses, thought no more of the advertisement and went about his day’s work. That night he dined intemperately. On being ejected from his club, he was bound for home when he recalled the forgotten advertisement and decided that something must be done about it.Driving to 500 Clarges Street, he demanded to see Mr. John Brown.“Are you Mr. John Brown?” he enquired of a sleepy and illhumoured figure in pyjamas.“I am, sir,” answered John Brown.“You’re the Mr. John Brown going shooting Uganda?”“Yes.”“You want shome one come with you?”“Yes.”...“Share ’spenshes?”“Yes.”“You put that ’vertisshment inMorning Posht?”“Yes.”“I thought sho. Shorry knock you up. Felt I musht tell you.... that I’m not coming.”...[16]They would have gone quite mad over the Russian Ballet.[17]The story in question was of a member of the Cave-Brown-Cave family, who, after conversing with a stranger in a railway-carriage, was asked his name.“Cave-Brown-Cave,” he replied. “And may I ask yours?”“Home-Sweet-Home,” answered his infuriated interlocutor.[18]In Chancery.[19]In preparation for visiting South America I had been vaccinated.[20]Ultimately this was published with the title:The Law Inevitable.

FOOTNOTES

[1]The Jonkheer Alexander Louis Teixeira de Mattos san Paio y Mendes. The family was Jewish in origin and was driven from Portugal by the persecution of the Holy Office. Teixeira was naturalized a British subject in the middle of the war and gave up his Dutch title. Even before this, he had contracted his full style to Alexander Teixeira de Mattos on ceremonial occasions, to A. Teixeira in departmental correspondence and to Tex or T. in letters to his friends.

[2]I quote from Chapter VII ofWhile I Remember, where the genesis of the department is described, though only from hearsay.

[3]Even in Teixeira’s wide reading there were occasional gaps; and, until I brought it to his notice, he was unacquainted with the celebrated life of Sir Christopher Wren by Mr. E. Clerihew and Mr. G. K. Chesterton:‘Sir Christopher WrenSaid, “I am going to dine with some men.If anybody callsSay I am designing St. Paul’s.”’After reading it, Teixeira’s nightly valediction as he left for his bridge club was: “I think ... yes, I think I shall design St. Paul’s for an hour or two.”

‘Sir Christopher WrenSaid, “I am going to dine with some men.If anybody callsSay I am designing St. Paul’s.”’

‘Sir Christopher Wren

Said, “I am going to dine with some men.

If anybody calls

Say I am designing St. Paul’s.”’

After reading it, Teixeira’s nightly valediction as he left for his bridge club was: “I think ... yes, I think I shall design St. Paul’s for an hour or two.”

[4]From the notice of his death inThe Times.

[5]Future letters were dated from ‘Hellgate’.

[6]The Burgomaster of Stillemonde.

[7]Frank MacKinnon K.C.

[8]A short time before, Teixeira, who affected a loathing for music, had been invited to hear the same quartette. Abandoning his usual gentleness of speech and spirit, he had accepted on condition of being allowed to massacre the quartette.

[9]Hymn to Aphrodite.

[10]Eimar O’Duffy’sWasted Island.

[11]Incidentally, my father lived 85 years, during all of which he never spoke of his particular regiment, brigade, division or army corps as anything but the Coldcream Guards; not in jest but in sheer, manly, gentlemanly ignorance.

[12]Perfectly good seventeenth-century English.

[13]Even the French write, invariably, un coup d’Etat, le conseil d’Etat, but l’état des coups, l’état du conseil.

[14]The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

[15]The reference here is to a story illustrative of the tricks which a man’s memory sometimes plays him:Reading in theMorning Post, that Mr. John Brown, of 500 Clarges Street, is shortly leaving for Uganda on a big-game-shooting expedition and would like a gentleman to come with him, sharing expenses, thought no more of the advertisement and went about his day’s work. That night he dined intemperately. On being ejected from his club, he was bound for home when he recalled the forgotten advertisement and decided that something must be done about it.Driving to 500 Clarges Street, he demanded to see Mr. John Brown.“Are you Mr. John Brown?” he enquired of a sleepy and illhumoured figure in pyjamas.“I am, sir,” answered John Brown.“You’re the Mr. John Brown going shooting Uganda?”“Yes.”“You want shome one come with you?”“Yes.”...“Share ’spenshes?”“Yes.”“You put that ’vertisshment inMorning Posht?”“Yes.”“I thought sho. Shorry knock you up. Felt I musht tell you.... that I’m not coming.”...

[15]The reference here is to a story illustrative of the tricks which a man’s memory sometimes plays him:

Reading in theMorning Post, that Mr. John Brown, of 500 Clarges Street, is shortly leaving for Uganda on a big-game-shooting expedition and would like a gentleman to come with him, sharing expenses, thought no more of the advertisement and went about his day’s work. That night he dined intemperately. On being ejected from his club, he was bound for home when he recalled the forgotten advertisement and decided that something must be done about it.

Driving to 500 Clarges Street, he demanded to see Mr. John Brown.

“Are you Mr. John Brown?” he enquired of a sleepy and illhumoured figure in pyjamas.

“I am, sir,” answered John Brown.

“You’re the Mr. John Brown going shooting Uganda?”

“Yes.”

“You want shome one come with you?”

“Yes.”...

“Share ’spenshes?”

“Yes.”

“You put that ’vertisshment inMorning Posht?”

“Yes.”

“I thought sho. Shorry knock you up. Felt I musht tell you.... that I’m not coming.”...

[16]They would have gone quite mad over the Russian Ballet.

[17]The story in question was of a member of the Cave-Brown-Cave family, who, after conversing with a stranger in a railway-carriage, was asked his name.“Cave-Brown-Cave,” he replied. “And may I ask yours?”“Home-Sweet-Home,” answered his infuriated interlocutor.

[17]The story in question was of a member of the Cave-Brown-Cave family, who, after conversing with a stranger in a railway-carriage, was asked his name.

“Cave-Brown-Cave,” he replied. “And may I ask yours?”

“Home-Sweet-Home,” answered his infuriated interlocutor.

[18]In Chancery.

[19]In preparation for visiting South America I had been vaccinated.

[20]Ultimately this was published with the title:The Law Inevitable.

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