WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE IS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7239, 28 October 1901, Page 3

WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE IS.

There was confusion on the railway platform when Sir Hector arrived in. Melbourne, owing to a miscarriage of the arrangements, and the waiting crowd of officials and politicians had some difficulty in finding whom they eoiiffht (says a Melbourne paper). The crowd was beginning to wonder where Sir Hector Mucdoiiuld •was. when a .sturdy, thick-set, cheerylooking man, scarcely middle-aged, stepped out in a brown* slouch hat, a soft *>hirt, and a blue sac suit. There was nothing military about this man. Th* twinkling eyes of this born humourist had never locked on the face of death. The spirit of good-fellowship and geniality that simmered all over bis visage was not the characteristic of the man who had commanded brigades a*id welded a black rabble into a tempered weapon. The Hector Macdonald tbe crowd knew was a dour, f.ttrn man, with a, hard, unyielding jaw — the man whose picture had been published a hundred times — and they stood aside to let this good-natured contractor or station i overseer get oat of the way for tlie general. Calonel Hoar! followed close heliind, and every eye was fixed on the door of the carriage- But instead of ushering out another 'passenger Gdoncl Hoad indicated the thiuk-ftt. bronzfd humourist with a wave of his hand, and tuinmmccd. "ftcntlenKii, this is General Sir Hector Macdonald."