THE BOOKMAN

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 96, 23 April 1921, Page 15

THE BOOKMAN

"The Days Before Yesterday." By Lord Frederic Hamilton. New York: George H. Doran Company.

Lord Frederic Hamilton follows his "Vanished Pomps of Yesterday," another interesting collection of rerainiecences of men and things of moment which were talked about when people now middle-

aged were young.

There are som« choice stories in the collection, which, are well worth repeating. One of them relates to when the writer's father became Lord Lieutenant o€ Ireland. It occurred while on a trip to Holynead. It takes the form of a complaint made by the chief steward to the chief stewardess of the boat on which ten minutes later the Lord Lieutenant waa to crose to Ireland.

"I put out the spirit decanters on the supper-table," says Mr. Murphy, "and ccc! Them Dublin waiters have every drop of it drunk on me," he goes on, showing me the empty decanters. "They have three bottle* of champagne drunk on me besides. What will we do with them now? The new Lord Lieutenant may be arriving this minute, and we have no time to move the drunk waiters for'ard. Will we put them in the little side-cabins here?" "Ah then!" says I, "and have them roaring and shouting, and knocking the place down maybe m half an hour or so? I'm surprised at ye; Mr. Murphy. We'll put the drunk waiters Tinder the saloon table, and you must get another tablecloth. We'll pull it down on both sides, the way the feet of them will not show." So I call up two stewards and the boys from the pantry, and we get the drunk waiters arranged as neat as herrings in a barrel tinder the saloon table. Mr. Murphy and I put on the second cloth, pulling it right to the floor, and ye wouldn't believe the way we worked, setting out the dishes, and the flowers, and the swatemates on ths table. "Now," says I, "for the love of God let none of them sit down at the table, or tkey'll feel the waiters with their' feet. Lave it to me to get His Excellency out of this, and hurry the drunk waiters away !'-' And I spoke a word to the boys in the pantry. "Boys," says I, "as ye value your salvation, keep up a great clatteration here by dropping the spoons and forks about, the way they'll no> hear it if the drunk waiters get snoring," and then the thrain arrives, and we run up to meet His Excellency your father, We went down to the saloon for 7 a moment, and every one saye that they never aaw ths like of that for a supper, the boys in the pantry keeping up such a clatteration by tumbling spoons and forks about that ye'd think the bottom of the ship would drop out with the noise of it all. Then I said, "Supper will not be ready for ten minutes, your Excellency"—though God forgive me if every bit ofit was not on the table that minute. Would you kindly see if the sleeping accommodation is commodious enough, for we'll alter it if it isn't?" and f° i ? e« *hem all ont of ttat, and I kept talking of this, and of that) the Lord only knows what, till Mr. Murphy comes up and says, "Supper is reaVly, youf Excellency," giving me a look out ot the tail of his eyes as much as to, say, Glory be! We have them drunk waiters safely out of that" Lord Frederic Hamilton seems to have had a good time as a boy in Dublin. Conviviality was still the order of the day at a time when animosities had not become so bitter as they are now : — Judge Keogh bad a great reputation as a wit The then Chief Justice was a Temarkable-looking man on account of nis great, snpw-whito whiskers and his jet-black head of hair. ■My mother, commenting on this, said- to Judge Keogh, "Surely Chief Justioe Monoghan must dye his hair." "To my certain knowledge he does not," answered Keogh. "How, then, do you account for the difference in. colour between his whiskers and his hair?" asked my mother. "To the fact that, throughout l'is life, he has used his jaw a great deal more thai, he ever has his brain," retorted Keogh. Father Healv, most genial and delightful of men, belongs, of course, to a, much later period. I was at the castle in Lord Zetland's time, when Father Healy had just retarned from a fortnight's visit to Monte Carlo, where he had been .the guest (of all the people in the world!) of Lord Randolph .Churchill. "May I ask how you explained your absence to your flock, Father Healy?" asked Lady Zetland. "I merely told them that I had been for a fortnight's retreat- at Carlow; I thought it superfluous prefixing thfl Monte," answered the priest. Again at.a wedding, the late Lord Morris, the possessor of the hugest brogue ever heard, observed as the young couple drove off. "I wish that 1 had am old shoe to throw after them for luck." "Throw your brogue after them, my dww fellow ; it will do just as well," flashed out Father Healy. Father Healy waa very much of a wit, whose reputation, is still green after half a century:— i

I myself heird Father Healy, in criticising a political, appointment which lay between a Welsh and a Scotch M.P., say, "Well, if we get the Welshman he'll pray oii his knees all Sunday, and then prey on his neighbours the other six days of the week; whilst if we get the Scotchman he'll keep the Sabbath and any other little .trifles he can lay his hand on." Healy, who was parish priest of Little Bray, used to entertain sick priests from the interior of Ireland who were ordered sea bathing. One day he saw one of his guests, quite a young priest, rash into the sea, glass in hand, and begin drinking ihe sea water. "You mustn't do that, my dear fellow," cried Father Healy aghast. "I didn't know there was any harm in it, Father Healy," said the young priest. "Whist! we'll not say one ward about it, and maybe then they'll never rotes the little drop you have taken."

The late Lord Charles Beresford inherited all the love, of the Waterfords and a practical joking, as Lord Frederick Hamilton shows in his folio-wing story. All those privileged to enjoy the friendship of the late Admiral Lord Charles Beresford will always treasure the memory of that genial and delightful personality. About thirty years ago an elderly gentleman named Bankee-Stanhope seemed to imagine that h« had some proprietary rights in the Carlton. Club. Mr. Bankes-Stanhope had his own chair, lamp, and table there, and was exceedingly zealous in reminding members of the various rules oL the club. Smoking was strictly forbidden' in the hall of the Carlton at that time. I was standing in the halT one/ night when Lord' Charles came out of the writing-room, a big bundle of newlywritten letters in his nand, and a large cigar in his mouth. He had just received a shilling's-worth of stamps from th« waiter, when old Mr. Bankes-Stan-hope, who habitually puffed and blew like Mr. Jogglebury-Crowdey of "Sponge's Sporting Tour," noticed the forbidden cigar through a glass door, andl came puffing and blowing into the hall in hot indignation. He reproved Lord Charles Beresford for his breach of club rules in, as I thought, quite unnecessarily severe tones. The genial Admiral kept his temper, but detached one penny stamp from his roll, licked' it, and placed it on his forefinger. "My dear Mr. Stanhope," he began, "it was a little oversight of mine. I was writing in there, do you see?" (a friendly little tap on Mr. Bankes-Sta-nhope's shirt-front, and on went a penny stamp), "and I moved in her/>, you sea" (another friendly tap, and on went a second stamp),

"and forgot about my cigar, you see" (» third tap, and a third stamp left adhering). The breezy Admiral kept up this conversation, punctuated with little taps, each one of which left its crimson trace on the old gentleman's white shirt-front, until the whole shil-ling's-worth was placed in position. Mr. Bankes-Stanhope was too irate to notice these little manoeuvres; he maintained his hectoring tone, and never glanced down afc his shirt-front. Finally Lord Charles left, and the old gentleman, still puffing and blowing with wrath, struggled' into his overcoat, and went off to an official party at Sir Michael HicksBeach's, where hLs appearance with twelve red penny stamps adhering to his shirt-front must have created some little astonishment.

Lord Hamilton's stories do not, however, all relate to Ireland and Irishmen. He gives a pathetic story of Landseer, the great animal painter, when his reason was tottering; glimpses of N«llie Farren, K*te Vaughan r Emily Duncan, stage charms who are now forgotten j thumbnail sketches of Mr. Gladstone, John Bright, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain; and a splendid description of his mother, the Duchefs of Abercorn, whom ho describes as "My wise counsellor."