Chapter NINETEEN (1)

Adventures in Clubland--The Last Bohemian in Paris--“Uncle
Smith” and the Junior Garrick Club--A Night Drive with
W. S. Penley and its Result--We Sell Up the Junior
Garrick--The Crichton--Our “Lions” of the Savage--Society
Establishes the Lyric Club--I Dine with La Belle Otero
before Her Début--A Tragedy of Leicester Square--Earl
Roberts at My Suggestion becomes President of the New
Vagabonds--The Argonauts--Tales of the Lyric Club--The
Devonshire Club, and Once Crockford’s in the Days of
the Dandies--The Exclusive Crimes Club and What We Do
There--Mysteries of the Ham-Bone Club.

I have known a good many clubs, and more clubmen of various social standing.

My earliest club was a little congregation that used to meet every night, in my student days, in Paris, at a table in the Café Vachette, in the Boul’ Mich’. Paul Deschanel, my fellow student who afterwards became President of the Republic, Spiridion--the great painter whose “Sappho” is so well known--and Revillion, who is Préfet of Basses-Alpes, were members, with a dozen others. We called ourselves the Beggars Club, and dined frugally each night, the meal usually ending in some “rag” or other. We drank nothing more intoxicating than a _framboise_, an _orgeat_, or a _café-cognac_, known as a _jus de chapeau_, when funds permitted. We were beggars because we begged francs from one another.

Often on my visiting Paris nowadays I eat a meal alone in that same well-remembered corner, where I used to sit when a fellow-student of so many who have since made their mark. Some are dead, while others occupy high positions in literature, art, politics, and medicine. My thoughts wander back to the Bohemia in Paris that has long ago been a thing of the past--the world where a man is judged neither by his pocket nor his coat, but only by his real worth as a sterling good fellow.

It is perhaps not more than seven years ago when, one summer’s evening, while passing along the Boulevard de Clichy, I came across a tall, cadaverous old friend of my youth, Georges Brandenbourg, the famous journalist of the _Figaro_. He was dressed in his old-fashioned flat-brimmed silk hat, much worn, a frock-coat green with age, very baggy trousers, and a flowing black cravat.

“Ah! _mon cher_ Le Queux!” he cried, patting me on the back. “Welcome to Paris again! Let’s have a drink!”

I was compelled to have a glass of absinthe with him, and then, while we were gossiping about the Beggars Club of the old days, he suddenly said:

“But you must dine with me to-night. Oh, you must, my dear fellow! I will accept no excuse. I have to do my _Figaro_ article afterwards, but we must dine first. Yes, you must dine with me.”

So we went forth again into the Boulevard, where my dear old Bohemian friend stopped at a butcher’s, bought half a kilo of “biftek,” which we roasted together over the gas-stove in his carpetless high-up room.

And it tasted sweeter to me, Bohemian that I am, than the very best dinner at the Ritz.

Two months later he died of septic pneumonia, and with him passed the last of the old-fashioned Paris Bohemians familiar to readers of Du Maurier’s _Trilby_. His biographical notice was excellently written by my friend Ernest Daudet.

After “The Beggars” in Paris, the next club of which I became a member after coming to London as a journalist was the Junior Garrick, the premises of which were on the eastern corner of Adelphi Terrace. In the centre was the Savage, which still exists, and on the western corner the Crichton. I was a member of all three of them.

In those days of comparative poverty, before I joined the _Globe_, I went mostly to the Junior Garrick, because if I had no money with which to pay for my dinner--as was often the case--the accommodating hall-porter would lend me a small sum on my cheap watch-and-chain. How many times that watch-and-chain went backwards and forwards I could not count. But I could always rely on a good square club meal at the Junior Garrick.

We were a merry Bohemian crowd of literary men and actors, including Augustus Moore, Eric Mackay--who wrote _Love-Letters of a Violinist_--Linton, the landscape-painter, Beerbohm Tree, George R. Sims, old George Grossmith, who had just finished newspaper reporting at Bow Street, George Lay, the theatrical solicitor. Sir George Lewis, Penley, Charlie Glenney, William Terris, the actor, Dan Leno, then earning about five pounds a week and very glad to get a “shop,” Brandon Thomas, who wrote _Charley’s Aunt_, Henry Pettit, young Harry Irving, and a host of kindred spirits. Most of us were in those days a very fourth-rate lot in all our professions, just as was our dub. Its furniture was extremely shabby, and its only claim to distinction was that it was established in an old Adams house and had on its walls many oil paintings of considerable value.

When the bailiffs were put in those pictures were carefully considered, and when at last we were sold up, the hall-porter’s book, which everyone had to sign, sold for a big price because of the autographs of the members and their distinguished friends.

I recollect a little incident one Saturday night at the Junior Garrick.

Penley, who was playing in _The Private Secretary_, Charlie Glenney, who was “resting” and myself had dined together at the club and had gone with Penley to the theatre. The house was crowded, so we spent the evening in “Spalding’s” dressing-room, and after Penley had rubbed off his grease-paint and changed out of his clerical attire he suggested that we should have supper at Rule’s, in Maiden Lane, which we did.

Over the meal Glenney suggested that we should both spend Sunday at his house out at Isleworth, an invitation that we accepted.

So into the Strand we sauntered, long after midnight, and Glenney, hailing a passing hansom cab, said:

“Look here, cabby, how much do you want to take us three to Isleworth?”

“Well, sir, I don’t know where the devil it is, but I’ll take yer for a quid!”

The bargain was fixed. We three wedged ourselves into the cab and drove westward, trotting along Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, and Kensington, where I think I must have fallen asleep.

At any rate, when I again opened my eyes I found that we were at a standstill in the country, with the sun shining and the old horse quietly grazing on the grass beside the road.

I nudged Penley, who woke with a start, and in his thin, squeaky voice exclaimed:

“Good Lord! Where are we?”

“I don’t know, old man,” was my reply; “there’s a breath of country air anyhow.”

He pushed up the trap-door in the roof and shouted in his clerical voice:

“Hi, cabby! Where are we?”

“I don’t know, sir,” replied a sleepy voice from above. “But we’ll go and see.”

And he whipped up the old horse to explore, when at last we found ourselves well on the Portsmouth road, near Esher, very far from Glenney’s house. We had breakfast at the Bear, and it was high noon before we arrived at Isleworth.

The Crichton Club was but a weak imitation of the Junior Garrick and did not last very long. Most of its members were also the habitués of the Junior Garrick, and on its collapse some of us went to the Yorick, in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, founded by “Uncle Smith,” once the leading light of the Junior Garrick. Others got themselves elected by hook or by crook to the Savage.

Neither the premises of the Savage nor its members need any description by me. Thirty years ago the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward, used often to preside at our weekly house-dinners, and the guests included the greatest men of the day. I can recall those dinners, when we had Stanley, Nansen--who wrote his name on the green wall, where one can see it still--half a dozen Lord Mayors and as many Cabinet Ministers, foreign diplomats and statesmen galore, as our guests, while there contributed to our post-prandial entertainments such well-known men as Rutland Barrington, George Grossmith, Courtice Pounds, Toft the sculptor, Phil May, Alfred Praga, and dozens of others who were world-famous.

I have heard Alfred Praga, the President of the Society of Miniaturists, tell an amusing story of his introduction to the Savage Club.

“Phil May was my sponsor at this club, and on the day of my election he perpetrated a bit of ‘spoof’ the effect of which I have hardly lived down yet--after a membership of over twenty-five years.

“On introducing me as a new member in the bar I noticed he made some _sotto voce_ remark that I--naturally flattered--thought were only complimentary things about me, and that he wished to spare my blushes. I afterwards learned that he told the fellows that I was immensely wealthy, and was equal to anything they could order in the way of drinks, and could simply buy the club up if I wanted to! Some took advantage of this, but others declined on the ground that they would never be able to return the compliment to a Crœsus like myself. Alas! I had many an occasion afterwards on which I was compelled to make him explain away his little joke, and only gradually was I able to take my proper place as a humble exponent of one of the great impecunious professions.”

After being a member of the Savage some ten years, Max Pemberton resigned, and so did I. Why, I really cannot tell to this day.

Perhaps it was because I had been invited to join the Committee of the Lyric Club, the handsome and luxurious premises of which had just been built at the corner of Whitcomb Street and Coventry Street, just off Leicester Square.

It was a Society club, of which Lord Lonsdale was the chief founder. It possessed all sorts of innovations, including a big private theatre, where theatrical shows could be given on Sunday evenings, and private dining-rooms fitted as yacht cabins, Indian bungalows, etc., where the food was in keeping with the desired effect. Dinner in the yacht cabin was served by stewards in uniform, and in the Indian bungalow by Indian servants, and so forth.

It was the first club of its kind to have lady guests, and its chief feature was its Sunday-night theatrical entertainments. The club appealed to me as a Bohemian.

Indeed, I was a member of the Lyric Club all through the innumerable vicissitudes it withstood for many years. At last it died and was resuscitated as the Prince of Wales’s Club, under which title it dwindled away and was closed for a long time. It later became the Motor Club.

Each time I pass its portico to-day a sad tragedy is recalled to me, and which I will now relate.

Living in the Rue des Petit Champs, in Paris, was a friend of mine, Henri Jurgens, the well-known impresario. One afternoon, meeting me in the American bar of the Hôtel Chatham, over which the ever-humorous “Johnnie” so long presided, he invited me to dine with him at his flat.

“I found two new girls the other day, singing and dancing at a little café in Marseilles. They are coming to dine with me to-night and I’m giving them a trial turn at Olympia afterwards,” he said. “Come and dine too.”

I accepted, and found two very handsome, dark-eyed, and very modest young French girls. Provençal from their accent, neatly but poorly dressed, wearing cotton blouses and dark skirts.

It was a merry meal, during which Jurgens urged them not to be frightened at appearing before a Paris audience.

“They are no more critical than they are in Marseilles,” he assured them.

The elder was a dancer, and the other, a few months her junior, a café singer.

While we sat in a box in the theatre they went on one after the other, among the “early turns,” and both were voted successes. The dancer executed a Spanish dance with castanets, showing wonderful agility, while the other sang two gay chansonettes with a splendid voice and looked very charming in her stage dress.

The dancer was afterwards known as La Belle Otero, and the singer was her friend, Liane de Vries. In the later years of their huge successes, when they both became the rage of Paris and of London, and earned huge salaries, I often reflected on that night at M. Jurgens’s flat.

About a year after their first appearance in Paris, Mademoiselle de Vries, who was notable for her great beauty, came to London to sing at the Alhambra, and, knowing her well, I invited her to sing at the Lyric Club one Sunday night.

She came, and delighted the audience, which consisted mostly of well-known Society people. Afterwards she had supper with me, and then, as we sat together in the corner of the room, she told me in confidence that M. Jurgens had proposed marriage to her.

“I have refused three times,” she said. “He is such a dear, and has been so very good to me, yet I really cannot marry a man I do not love. This morning I had a telegram from him. He will be here to-morrow, so I shall leave London as early as I can in the morning, as I do not want to meet him.”

“Where shall you go?”

“I really don’t know. I have written to the Alhambra management terminating my engagement.”

That was all she would tell me; but she seemed greatly perturbed.

Presently, while she was standing in the hall with her cloak on, and I was getting into my coat, a cab stopped and my friend Jurgens, who was a member of the club, dashed in.

The girl gave vent to an exclamation of amazement and he excitedly persuaded her to go outside with him and get into the cab. For nearly half an hour the cab remained there, while the pair held an animated conversation.

Then they drove off. That was the last I ever saw of my poor friend Jurgens. Next day he telegraphed me farewell from Dover, and that same night he committed suicide in his flat in Paris.

That is why I can never pass the corner of Whitcomb Street and Coventry Street without a painful memory.

* * * * *

Some seventeen years ago I followed my old friend George R. Sims to the Devonshire Club, and there became one of a little literary circle that embraced Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, Clement Shorter, Max Pemberton, Sir George Sutton, Arnold White, and Frank Richardson, of “whiskers” fame, and G. H. Fosdike Nichols, who is “Quex” of the _Evening News_, and knows more about people and their doings than any other man in London. Years have gone, but we all survive as I write this, save poor Sims, Robertson Nicoll, and the erratic Frank Richardson.

I have been a member of a good many dining clubs: first the Old Vagabonds, then the New Vagabonds, and afterwards of the Argonauts; all three having as their leading lights that dual control of my old friends Douglas Sladen and G. B. Burgin; the one hirsute and the other bald, but who, when working together to run a dining-club, formed the most perfect combination in the world.

All three clubs have been many times described, therefore I need not remark much about them, except that at the meetings of the New Vagabonds at the Hotel Cecil one met everyone worth knowing and everyone who had “done something.” Alas! It is a thousand pities that the New Vagabonds no longer exists.

I recollect when I asked Lord Roberts to become its president he looked at me very gravely, and asked:

“What name did you say?”

“The New Vagabonds,” I replied. And I recited the roll of membership, which included many famous names associated with art, literature, and the drama.

“Well,” he said, “it’s title sounds uninviting, but I suppose I’ve been as much of a roving vagabond as most of you. Yes, if they want me to become its president I will.”

Mr. G. B. Burgin, in his excellent book, _Memoirs of a Clubman_, tells a story concerning myself at the first dinner of the New Vagabonds over which Lord Roberts presided.

He relates how, while I sat next to the president and was wearing miniatures of my decorations, a girl, indicating myself, asked him, “Who is that distinguished General with the wistful face next to Lord Roberts?”

Mr. Burgin also recalls an incident connected with the pronunciation of my somewhat unusual name--NOT _a nom-de-plume_, as so many have believed. He says:

“I was coming up to town one day when a girl and her mother got into the train. The girl carried a book under her arm. When they were comfortably settled the mother said: ‘Give me that book of Le Quek’s, dear,’ and the daughter replied: ‘Excuse me, mother, but I think you mean Le Kook’s.’ They appealed to me, and I said authoritatively that the proper pronunciation was ‘Le Kew’; another man in the corner broke in with ‘Le Kicks,’ and they were still kicking over it when I left the train.”

Mr. Burgin was, of course, correct. My name has, however, always been a stumbling-block, and more especially so, since Pinero wrote “The Gay Lord Quex.”

I am one of the earliest members of another club, which is known as “Our Society.” It was started by Arthur Lambton--to whom I believe I acted as literary godfather--Ingleby Oddie, now coroner for Westminster, H. B. Irving, Lord Albert Godolphin Osborne, and Herbert Crosse, its object being the study of criminology. Professor Churton Collins, Sir Melville Macnaghten, of Scotland Yard, George R. Sims, Eveleigh Nash, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Max Pemberton, Filson Young, Arthur Diòsy, J. B. Harris-Burland, P. W. Everett, Thomas Marlowe, editor of the _Daily Mail_, with Sir Sydney Russell Wells, Sir George Turner, and Sir H. Waterhouse as representatives of the medical profession, soon gathered round our board, and by the rules membership was strictly limited to forty.

Lord Northcliffe, when he joined, nicknamed us “The Forty Thieves.”

About three or four dinners are held annually, and at them the latest mystery of crime is earnestly discussed, though there is a rule that our deliberations are entirely secret, and no word of them ever divulged. We have somehow now earned the sobriquet of “The Crimes Club.” About a dozen guests are allowed, and nowadays our membership has been increased to sixty.

Among the regular attendants, in addition to those mentioned above, are the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Portarlington, Lord Sackville, Lord Kintore, Sir Eric Drummond, Admiral Sir E. Inglefield, General Sir A. Balfour, Sir Wilfred Atlay, Sir Godfrey Baring, Sir John Hall, Sir Henry Jerningham, and Colonel G. Cornwallis-West, while legal celebrities such as Sir E. Marshall-Hall, K.C., Sir H. Curtis Bennett, K.C., and Mr. Theobald Mathew are all to be seen around the table.

Arthur Lambton, to whose untiring efforts the club is due, and who acts as honorary secretary, takes the chair, and the procedure is, that a member reads a paper on some recent criminal case, and sometimes it is followed by a discussion in which counsel, who has acted for the prosecution or for the defence, takes part. The cases are analysed and the mentality of the guilty one dissected in a manner that is of intense interest to those who study the psychology of crime. My own small contributions have been the description of the crimes of Landru, and how I helped the Sûreté to investigate them, and also a small description of spies I have met. It certainly is the most exclusive and most interesting club in London, and its subscription is two half-crowns yearly!

There is, of course, a long waiting list, but no vacancy occurs, unless a member resigns or dies. An additional loss to that of Lord Northcliffe, one of our best-known and most popular members, who has recently died, is caused by the death of my old and valued friend Arthur Diòsy, traveller and lecturer, whose striking features, with the long-upturned moustachios, were so well known in London drawing-rooms.

He was my friend through thirty years, and in many ways a most remarkable figure in Bohemian London. Though born in London, he was the son of Martin Diòsy, a Hungarian refugee and patriot. After being educated in Germany, he learnt Japanese and became an advocate for an Anglo-Japanese alliance, founding the Japan Society and being its chairman. He knew Japan better than any other Englishman and--let me whisper it--lectured for years on that country before he had ever visited it!

I recollect though we were close friends, we had not seen each other for about six years, when I happened to arrive in Biskra, on the desert border in Algeria. The hotel was a third-rate one, the others all being full.

Passing along the corridor, I heard a voice. Diòsy’s was peculiar and once heard was always remembered, so I knew who was my fellow-guest.

“What ho! Arthur!” I cried.

“Who’s that?” asked Diòsy, with his strange, rolling tongue. Then he turned the corner, and, facing me, said:

“By the beard of the Prophet, behold the mystery-monger!”

I met Arthur Diòsy constantly all over Europe. When we sat together at the Crimes Club we used to exchange jokes about our travels. Lord Northcliffe, who was one of his great admirers, said one night at the club when we were all there together:

“Look, Quex! Look at the wily old Jap! Take good stock of him, for he’s wonderful. He can lecture on any mortal subject on earth at five minutes’ notice.” And so he could.

Poor Arthur Diòsy! He was a man after my own heart, and I hesitate to let my pen run further across this page.

It was only just before last Christmas that, having eaten kippers together, at one o’clock in the morning, in the Ham-Bone Club--London’s only really Bohemian Club, of which I am about to tell you--I strolled with him as far as Jermyn Street, and we stood outside the house where he had rooms.

“Well, my dear Le Queux,” he said, “_au revoir_ to you. You are going ski-ing in Switzerland, and I go to the Riviera. We shall both be back in town in March and we will then pick another pair of those succulent kippers, which are such a speciality of the Ham-Bone--eh?”

We grasped hands and parted, while I walked along to the Devonshire in the moonlight.

He went out to Cannes, and, alas! died there a few weeks later.

And as I write this, his cheery caricature drawn by Sava Botzaritch still laughs out to me from its silver frame.

I referred to Arthur Lambton as the energetic organizer and secretary of the Crimes Club. He tells a good story about a murder. It will be recollected that Devereux murdered his wife, put her body in a trunk, and then poured glue all over her. When the trunk was opened she was taken out stiff and viscous like a fish.

Being at breakfast with his father, the late General Arthur Lambton, my friend asked: “Anything in the paper this morning?” “No,” replied the General, “except that I see a gentleman named Devereux has put his wife in aspic!”

I have mentioned the Ham-Bone Club.

It is but vaguely known to Society, and then only through the Press publishing an occasional paragraph concerning it. Few even of artistic and literary London are aware of its existence.

As befits the only real Bohemian set still left in London, it keeps almost exclusively to itself. And yet it is surprising how many interesting and notable men--whose names are household words--gather together in stables and hay-lofts that have been transformed into the club premises. There artists, sculptors, editors, and other men of note go to enjoy themselves, to eat a cheap dinner, to laugh, to dance, to sup off kippers, and to find delight in innocent but exciting “ragging.”

The walls of its big, narrow room, are covered with framed caricatures of the better-known members. There is a bar at one end with a big barrel on the counter, and little tables set around, together with a piano that is played by a young Armenian pianist and composer of great promise, whom everyone calls “Marcantonio.”

The place is crowded with members dancing with artists’ models, mannequins from West End dressmakers, and other pretty girls who were only allowed to join the club after the committee had made most searching inquiries and had proved that they were all regularly employed in some profession or another.

The Ham-Bone is the gayest yet most wholesomely minded of all the London night clubs.

You may go to the Embassy, where it is expensive, the Forty-Something, Rector’s, and a dozen other night dance clubs, but the Ham-Bone reigns supreme for fun, frolic, and a real good time. The Bohemians of London run it.

* * * * *

I have attended other eccentric London clubs. There was the now-long defunct Thirteen Club, established to counteract the superstition attached to that supposed unlucky number. I knew the “Magic Circle” or professional conjurers’ club, and am still a member of the Tatlers. Recently I was guest with Lord Birkenhead and Arthur Lambton at a new club formed by Oxford undergraduates, on similar lines to our Crimes Club. Their name is “The Thugs.”

I had a long discussion with the ex-Lord Chancellor, as to whether the right pronunciation was Tugs, Thougs, or Thugs. He pronounced that it should be “Tugs,” so “Tugs” it is.

That night, indeed, he was made a Tug, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.

The club is one that we shall hear more of in the near future.

Another club of which I was once a member, may claim to be one of the most exclusive clubs in the world--the Florence Club in Florence.

The members, which consist for the most part of the proud but penurious Tuscan aristocracy, actually black-balled a British Prince! After that, Major Percy Chapman, British Consul-General in Florence, Montgomery Carmichael, British Consul to Leghorn, and all the English members resigned, _en bloc_, including myself. For some years, too, I was a member of the Travellers’ Club in Paris, and later of the Turf Club in Cairo and the International Sporting Club at Monte Carlo.

But of all clubs, I prefer the Devonshire, with its old-fashioned comfort, and its fine traditions.

A good medical story was told me recently by my friend, Dr. Cyril Horsford, the well-known laryngologist and aurist, of Harley Street. While acting as specialist at the hospital at Genoa during the war, he found that to many of those rendered dumb by shell-shock, speech could be induced by touching the patients’ throat in a certain way and suddenly asking him a question. Late one evening a man was brought in and put to bed. He was unable to utter a word, so Horsford asked him if he would like to speak again. The man smiled incredulously, whereupon Horsford told him that he would restore his speech at twelve o’clock to-morrow. The patient, however, wrote down that he would bet him all he possessed that he would not.

In the morning the specialist had many patients to see and at last the man in question was shown in. Horsford recognized him and acted as he had done in other cases, whereupon the man at once spoke.

“Ah! you see!” said the doctor, “I’ve won my bet!”

“Excuse me, sir, you ’aven’t,” replied the man. “You said twelve o’clock, it’s ten minutes parst!”

The most disreputable-looking person who ever entered the portals of the Devonshire Club was old Lord Clanricarde. I often chatted with him. He was shabby and parsimonious to the extreme. He had a mania for collecting paper-bags. He used very often to stay at the Victoria Hotel at St. Leonards, and I frequently met him out on the Promenade doing his shopping. This consisted of buying a couple of bananas, or an apple, or perhaps a bun, which he would eat in a shelter and then carefully preserve the bag until he had a pile upon his dressing-table, when his man upon his departure would carefully tie them up and take them away. He left, as is well known, his great fortune to the Lascelles family.

Even London police-court magistrates may be “taken in.” An acquaintance of mine, a well-known metropolitan stipendiary, met a few weeks ago an actor in another club of which I am a member.

They became friendly, and eventually the magistrate lent him £100 on the “wife-and-starving-family” appeal. The actor did not pay, the magistrate could not afford to risk publicity by putting him to the county court, so he rather foolishly wrote to the committee of the club asking them to remove the name of the delinquent from the list! The actor is now a hundred pounds the richer, and his worship will, I fear, have to whistle for his money!

There are several variations of the following Devonshire club story, but I give the true one, for which Eveleigh Nash vouches.

My friend, Frank Richardson, as everyone knows, held whiskers in deadly horror. One day Max Beerbohm had arranged with Frank to lunch with him at the club. Max arrived at a few minutes before one o’clock and went into the smoking-room, where sat Thomas Barratt, head of the Pears’ Soap firm, one of the best of men, who possessed a colossal white, spade-shaped beard that swept half way to his waist. Beerbohm did not know who Barratt was, but he saw at a glance his patriarchal beard, so he went out into the hall, and pretended to be thoroughly overwhelmed. At that moment Richardson entered and dashed up to him.

“What’s the matter, Max?” he asked anxiously.

“Hold my hand, hold my hand,” replied Beerbohm with simulated breathlessness. “_I’ve just seen Gawd!_”

In another of Frank Richardson’s jokes I myself participated. He had just written his book on whiskers and was having a deadly feud with “Tatcho Sims” as he called him. A few days before Christmas when I entered the club, the porter handed me a large square parcel. I cut the string to find what appeared to be a handsome jewel-box, which, on opening, I found to contain three bottles of a much advertised tooth-wash, lying on a bed of apricot velvet.

Inside was a letter from the enterprising firm asking me to accept the little present, and if I obtained any benefit from their preparation would I kindly send them a line or two, which they might use when advertising. It was not an unusual request. I have had many such.

“Hulloa! William!” I heard Richardson exclaim behind me, “then you’ve got a box too. I had mine a week ago.”

“Oh!” I said. “What did you write to the people?”

He took from his wallet a copy of his letter, the firm’s reply, and his reply. Richardson wrote:

“Sirs,--I am very grateful to you for sending me your wonderful preparation. I have used it on my hair with marked effect. It is turning my hair quite grey.--Yours very truly, Frank Richardson.”

To this the firm replied regretting that Mr. Richardson had not read the directions, and that the preparation was intended for the teeth, and not the hair.

Frank’s reply was:

“Sirs,--I have your letter, and I have thoroughly tested your preparation. I am glad to tell you that I have found it equally efficacious in dysentery and backache, in bleaching the hair, and in putting a shine on my brown boots.--Yours truly, Frank Richardson.”

Mr. Lewis Edmunds, K.C., who interests himself very much in the Devonshire Club, tells me some quaint stories of the Bar.

One he told at the fireside in the smoking-room the other day was distinctly humorous.

“Once I was junior with Sir Frank Lockwood in a divorce case heard in camera before Mr. Justice Butt--oh! a dreadful case!” he said. “Well, you know that the legal maxim is that a client must come into court with clean hands. During the course of the case, Lockwood, who was a marvellous caricaturist, drew a picture of our client with his hands dripping with ink! When the case was over the parties went away in two cabs which raced down the Strand and collided. Thereupon the parties got out and came to fisticuffs, the end being that they came up at Marlborough Street on cross-summonses for assault.”

Rupert Grayson, who is a director of Eveleigh Nash’s publishing company, told me at the Guards’ Club, where I was dining with him one night, a very interesting story of Monte Carlo.

Many stories of luck and fortune at Monte Carlo have been told, but this one that Grayson tells is even better, in my opinion, than most.

An Englishman punting at roulette placed five francs _en plein_ on number seventeen. The number turned up. He understood very little French, and when the croupier inquired whether he wished to leave his winnings on the number, he called across the table “Two, two,” meaning leave two and return the rest. The croupier, misunderstanding him, imagined it “_Tout, tout_,” and began piling up the entire winnings on seventeen. When the Englishman saw that he was replacing more than two plaques he shouted excitedly, “Two--enough, enough.” The croupier, thinking he said “_Tout--neuf, neuf_,” transferred the whole of his winnings to number nine. “_Neuf, rouge, impair, et manque!_” cried the croupier a moment later. The Englishman had won over 6,000 francs with his original five francs in two coups.

Talking of Monte Carlo, Louis Drexel, Rupert Grayson’s brother-in-law, tells a good story of his father, “Tony” Drexel, who was staying at the Hôtel de Paris. At three o’clock every morning his father was awakened by a man in the room above throwing his boots violently on to the floor. This practice became so unbearable that at last complaints were addressed to Fleury, who was then manager at the Paris. The Frenchman apologized. M. Fleury could rest assured it would not happen again. Next morning, punctually at three o’clock, the Frenchman returned to his room. Unthinkingly following his usual custom, he hurled his right boot to the floor before he remembered, with horror, his promise. In the room below, “Tony” Drexel, awakened as usual, lay waiting for the second boot. Long, dreary hours passed, till a message reached the Frenchman: “As Mr. Drexel would like to get to sleep, would the gentleman have the goodness to throw down the second boot as soon as possible.”

The late Sir George Lewis, the famous solicitor, once declared to me in the Devonshire:

“The Divorce Court is the biggest blackmailing court in all Europe. In half the cases there is blackmailing, and a general square-up all round before the parties go into court. The public never see divorce proceedings in their true light. The lawyers know, but the public is unaware.”

Next day he used the same words in giving evidence before the Divorce Commission.

This view is borne out by my friend Lord Birkenhead, who quite recently declared to me that he had long reached the conclusion that our divorce laws are almost the worst in the civilized world.

In discussing the question with the Divorce Law Reform Union, of which the brilliant ex-Lord Chancellor is president, he told them that:

“There is no chicanery and no trickery to which judges in the Divorce Court have not been compelled to resort. This does not apply to the judges in any other court of law. There is no room in this country for a clergy established by law who deny the right of marriage to people, freed by law, in a Church established by law,” he asserted.

Another fellow-clubman at the Devonshire is a tall, cheery, athletic golf-player, well known in business circles in London. Mr. A. Noel Mobbs, brother of the famous Colonel E. R. Mobbs, D.S.O., who was ten years ago popular as wing-three-quarter in the English Rugby Football Team. When Colonel Mobbs died, a subscription fund for a memorial reached £2,600, and a bust was a year ago put up to his memory in the Market Square in Northampton, the balance being given to various charitable institutes in which he was interested.

“My chief claim to fame is being Edgar’s brother,” Noel Mobbs is fond of saying. But Noel Mobbs has another distinction, that of finance, for after the war he and a few friends gave the British Government seven and a half million pounds sterling for the “dump” at Slough. In addition, he is chairman of half-a-dozen other big companies, to which he attends, with his merry laughter, in his intervals between golf and bridge.

I was with him ski-ing in Mürren last year, and I witnessed one of the funniest sights I ever saw on the snow. Mobbs, tall, thin, and athletic, in proper ski garb, had picked up the art of ski-ing in a marvellous manner, and started to run down the Allmendhubel slope, which is very steep, as any ski-runner knows. As he approached the raised snow-bank at the bottom, he saw a pretty young lady in sweater and cap seated on the bank admiring the view across to the Jungfrau. He made an attempt to “telemark,” and thus stop dead, but he bungled it at about twenty-five miles an hour, crossed his skis, rammed them home in the snow, and landed plump in the astonished girl’s lap!

There he remained in an undignified position, and with many apologies, for a full ten minutes before he could be extricated, his skis being so deeply imbedded!

Many stories are told in clubs and elsewhere of men who, by surreptitious means, obtain a larger share of spirits than others not so cute.

Colonel F. J. Agabeg, of the Chota Nagpore Regiment, who was so well known in India before he retired and came to live in Bedfordshire, told me in Mürren last winter a very good example of this.

A brother officer of his one day after polo was seated on Agabeg’s verandah, about to take a peg. The native servant was pouring out the whiskey into a big, thirst-quenching glass, and asked,

“How much, sahib?”

“Oh! just cover the ice,” was the careless reply.

The Indian servant poured on, being unaware that ice floats.

In telling these stories I hope I have not taken the reader too frequently under the spreading chestnut tree; but if I have recounted an anecdote he knows, well I ask him to forgive me, particularly if I have told it in an inferior way.

Perhaps I may print some further reminiscences one day. But for the present these must suffice.

THE END.

INDEX

Abö University, 190

Abruzzi, Duke of the, 18

Adams, Davenport (dramatic critic), 163, 188

Adams, Doctor (of Essex), 225–229

Adcock, St. John, 93

Adelphi Terrace, 288

Adler, Dr. (Chief Rabbi), 189

Admiralty, the, 237, 259

Adrianople, 116

Aerodrome, Croydon, 103

Afzelius, Professor, 190

Agabeg, Colonel F. J. (of the Chota Nagpore Regiment), 306

Ahmed, Prince (brother of the Crown Prince of Johore), 119

Albacete, Léon (the most daring and expert jewel thief in Europe),
213

Albania, 10, 32, 44;
the unchanging, 56;
brigands of, 45;
laws of hospitality, 60;
mountains of, 116

Albion, 64

Aldershot, 160

Alexandra, Her Majesty Queen, 30

Alexandrovsk, 269

Algeria, 10

Alhambra Theatre, 101, 292

America, 18, 189

Amers, Captain (musical conductor), 202

Andrade. _See_ Albacete, Léon, 212

Angier, Sir Theodore V. S., 248

Anglia, East, 245

Anthony, Doctor, 230

Argentina, Jews in, 27

Argonauts Club, 294

Argyll, His Grace the late Duke of, 201, 248

Argyll Hotel, 201

Armenia, 113

Armstrong, Herbert Rowse, (poisoner) 234

Armstrong, Sir George (Proprietor of the Globe), 164, 176

Aruwimi, 100, 168. _See_ Harding, George

Ashburton, 149

Askew, Charles (the American millionaire), 223;
an ornithologist, 224;
his gift of rare Greek gem to Le Queux, 225

Asquith, H. H. (Home Secretary), 191

Astrakhan, Arcadia Garden, 97

Aswân, 148

Atlay, Sir Wilfred, 296

Austin, Stanley (of the _Daily Mirror_), 278

Australia, 248

Austria, Francis Joseph, Emperor of, 35

Austria, Karl Franz Joseph, Emperor of, 35;
succeeded to the throne during the war, 39;
a boon companion of the German Ex-Crown Prince in many
disgraceful escapades, 39

Austria, Maria Josephs, Archduchess of, 39

Austria, Otto, Archduke of, 39

Avory, Mr. Justice, 180

Baccelli, Enrico, 126

Baccelli, Signora, 125

Bachelors’ Club, 133

Baden, 35

Baily, Mr. F. E. (Editor _Royal Magazine_), 278

Balfour, Lord, 90, 170

Balfour, General Sir A., 296

Balfour, Mr. A. J., 16

Balkans, 34, 222

Balliol, 119

Baring, Sir Godfrey, 296

Barmouth, North Wales, 183

Barratt, Thomas J., 301

Barrington, Rutland, 290

Barry, M.P., Sir Francis Tress, 248

Bath Club, 202

Battenberg, Prince Louis of, 236, 242

Bazaine, Marshal (traitor, surrendered Metz to Germans in 1870), 210

Beaconsfield, Lord, 132

Beefsteak Club, 183

Beerbohm, Max, 301, 302

Beggars’ Club, 286

Belgium, Albert, King of, 103

Belgium, Elizabeth, Queen of, 103

Belgium, Leopold, King of, 100;
audience with King Albert, 104;
presented to King Leopold by H. M. Stanley, 100

Belgrade, 67

_Belgravia_, the, 188

Bell, Mr. Graham (inventor of telephones), 16

Bengesco, Madame Zoe, 92

Bennett, Sir H. Curtis, 296

Benzie, Mr. G. W. G. (of Peterculter, Aberdeen), 159

Beresford, Lord Charles, 90, 236, 251, 260

Berlin, 115, 242

Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 205, 219

Besant, Walter, 94

Beutner, Dr. (Steinhauer the spy and the Kaiser’s bosom friend), 269

Bexhill, 274

“Biffy.” _See_ Ismail, Crown Prince, 118

Binns (American wireless hero), 161

Birkenhead, Lord, 170, 273, 299, 304

Black Mountains, Land of the, 33

Bleriot (aviator), 151

Blood-feud. _See_ Marashut, Mrika Kol, 59

Blücher, Field-Marshal von, 242

Blyth, Lord, 275

B----, Monsieur, Baron de Hirsch’s confidential Secretary, 26;
his admiration of the great financier’s generous treatment of
himself and others, 27;
beautiful house at Enghien, 27

Bodkin, Sir Archibald, 180

Bolshevism, 16

Bond Street, 104, 140

Boodles Club, 246

Bosphorus, 113

Bottomley, Horatio, 164, 267

Bouchier, Mr. James (of _The Times_), 88

Boul’ Mich’, 220, 286

Boyd, Rev. Halbert (author of _Men and Marvels_), 280

Boyle, D.S.O., Colonel Joseph Wentworth, (“The King of the
Klondike”), 282, 283

Brabazon, General Sir John, 275

Brandenbourg, Georges (of the _Figaro_), 287

Brassey, Lord, 248, 249

Bray, Mr. Justice, 170

Brazil, Dom Pedro of, 35

Brex, Twells, his pathetic story of a spider, 100;
death, 100

Bridge House Hotel, Staines, 181

Brieux, Eugène (dramatic author), 221

Brigands, the Skreli, 44

Brighton, 54, 198

Brighton Pier, 202

_Britain’s Deadly Peril_, 262

Broström, a Swede, 189

Brown, Mr. E. P. (land telephone expert), 157

Brown’s Hotel, 67

Brudenell-Bruce, young, 132

Brussels, 152

Brussi, Enrico, 23, 24

Buchanan, Sir George (British Minister to Bulgaria), 84

Buchanan, Lady Georgina (wife of Sir George), 84

Bucharest, 84, 96

Buckingham Palace, 236

Budapest, 96

Buenos Ayres, 123

Bulgaria, 37;
intrigues of, 34

Bulgaria, Ferdinand King of, 13, 85;
at heart an Anglophile, 89;
estranged from England by blunders made at Whitehall, 89, 116

“Bundle” (Countess of Cardigan’s dog), 135

Burbridge of Harrod’s, 155

Burbury, Mr. H. H. T. (of Wakefield), 159

Burgin, Mr. G. B., 294, 295

Burleigh, Bennett, 183

Burnham, Mr. W. W. (of Blackheath), 159

Butcher, Sir George, 90

Butt, Mr. Justice, 303

Buxton, lecture at, 257

“Bwab.” _See_ Brabazon, General Sir John

Café Vachette, 286

Cairo, 148

Calabria, 216;
earthquake, 20

Calea Victoriei, 98

California, 149

Campbell-Bannerman Government, 246

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir. H., 246

Canada, 248

Cann, Dr. (the eccentric physician), 277

Cannes, 26, 298

Cantacuzen, George, 98

Capsa’s Restaurant, 97

Carava, Signor M., 215

Cardigan, Countess of (widow of Lord Cardigan of Balaclava fame),
131;
her appearance, 132;
her “risky” stories, 132;
Eveleigh Nash regrets publication of them, 134

Carisbrooke, Marquis of, 122

Carisbrooke, Marchioness of, 122

Carlton Hotel, 151

“Carmen Sylva,” Queen of Roumania, 84;
her private life, 92;
interest in British novelists, 93;
intended to construct model village at Bucharest, 95

Carmichael, Mr. Montgomery (British Consul and author of _In
Tuscany_), 37

Carnarvon, Lord, 147, 149, 150

Carrier pigeons, 256

Casino, at Corfu, 147

Caspar, William (an American), 91, 97, 98;
brought aviation to England, 151;
a dead shot, 156;
characteristics, 153;
dress, 154;
fond of practical joking, 155;
an hustler, 152;
did things on a lavish scale, 153

Cattaro, 31, 44

Cecil Hotel, 151, 189

Cettigné, capital of Montenegro, 31;
the people by law are compelled to wear the national dress, 31;
the women forbidden to wear European hats, 31;
every man armed, 32;
King Nicholas fines a man in the street for being unarmed, and
pockets the money, 65

Chapple, Dr. W. A. (Liberal M.P. for Stirlingshire), 276

Châteauroux, 10

Chatsworth, 170

Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, 139

Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 252

Cimiez, 30

Clanricarde, Lord, 300;
his appearance, 300;
his frugality, 301;
his great fortune, 301

Clarendon, Lord, 90, 261

Claridge’s Hotel, 28, 97, 122

Clémentine, Princess of Cobourg, 36;
appearance of, 36;
ungracious manners, 37

Clichy, Boulevard de, 287

Clifford’s Inn, 201

CLUBS:
Argonauts, 294
Bachelors, 133
Bath, 202
Beefsteak, 183
Beggars, 286
British Ski Association, 11
Crichton, 290
Crimes, 197
Devonshire, 11
Diplomats (Bulgaria), 86
Florence (Florence), 30
Garrick, 183
Guards, 303
Ham-Bone, 297
International Sporting at Monte Carlo, 300
Jockey, 183
Junior-Garrick, 288
Lyric, 291
Magic Circle, 299
Military (Belgrade), 84
Monte Carlo, 300
Motor, 291
Mürren Ski, 11
New Vagabonds, 294
Old Vagabonds, 294
Our Society, 295
Prince of Wales’s, 291
Reform, 246
Savage, 246
St. James, 97
Swiss Alpine, 11
Tatlers, 11
Travellers (Paris), 96
Turf (London), 183
Turf (Cairo), 300

Cody (the pioneer of aviation), 151, 155

Colchester, oyster feast at, 273

Collen, Major-General Sir Edwin, 248

Collins, Professor Churton, 295

Collins, Wilkie, 94

Colwyn Bay, 185

Colwyn, Lord, 268

Constance, Lady de la Warr, 274

Constant, Baron de, 221

Constantinople, 47, 105, 116

Cooper, Sir William (of Castle Carey, Guernsey), dedication, 5

Cooper, Lady Earnshaw, dedication to, 5

Cooper, Miss Gladys, 122

Cornwall, Sir Edwin, 170

Cornwallis-West, Colonel G., 296

Cotroceni, Countess, 99

Courtney, Mr. W. L., 201

Coventry Street, 293

Cowdray, Lord, 275

Cowes, 140

Craig, Mr. J. A. (editor _Great Thoughts_), 280

Crampton, Mr. W. J. (of Weybridge), 159

Crawford, Earl of, 261

Crawfords, the mythical. _See_ Richmond, Mr. Barry, and the Humbert
Case.

Crawley, Colonel C. G. Chetwode (of the General Post Office), 160

Crichton Club, 290

Crimes Club, 197, 233

Crippen, Dr., _See_ Adams, Doctor, 225

Cromer, 121

Crookhaven Wireless Station, 161

Cross, Mr. J. H., 139

Crosse, Mr. Herbert, 295

Croydon aerodrome, 103

Curzon Street, 125

Czrnagora (Black Mountain), 33

_Daily Chronicle_, 245, 279

_Daily Mail_, 10, 192, 245, 249

_Daily Sketch_, 189, 221

_Daily Telegraph_, 192, 245

Dartmoor, 148

Daudet, Ernest, 287, 221

Daurignac, Thérèse (one of the greatest adventuresses in French
history), 206

Dead, Book of the, 147

Deanery Street, Park Lane, 131

Deauville, 99

Deene Park, Northamptonshire, 131

Delagrange (aviator), 153

Delloye (Paris bank clerk). _See_ Rebecque, Count de, 219

Deltour, Gaston (artist), 219

Deputies, Chamber of, at Rome, 21

Derby, the Earl of, 248, 170

Deschanel, Paul (President of French Republic), 205, 219, 220, 286

Des Graz, Charles, Mr., now Sir, 32

Devereux (murderer), 298

Devonshire, 82

Devonshire Club, 118, 225, 246, 275, 300, 304, 305

Dimsdale, M.P., Sir Joseph, 248

Diòsy, Arthur, 296;
born in London; son of Martin Diòsy, Hungarian refugee and
patriot, 296;
studied Japanese, 296;
his great knowledge of Japan, 297;
founded the Japan Society, 297;
admired by and friend of Lord Northcliffe, 297;
died at Cannes, 298

Diòsy, Martin, 296

Diplomats’ Club, Bulgaria, 86

Divorce and its laws, 304

Dixon-Hartland (the banker), 181

Djakova, 48

Dobrovitch, Monsieur, 87

Dobson, Austin, his poems, 93

Downing Street, 246

Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 93, 295;
communicating with spirits, 100

Draga, Queen, 67, 69

Dresden, 38, 140;
royal palace at, 13

Drexel, Louis (Rupert Grayson’s brother-in-law), story of his
father, “Tony” Drexel, 304

Drexel, “Tony,” 304

Drummond, Sir Eric, 296

Duchess d’Ussac, 213

Dufferin, Lord, 108

Duff-Gordon, Lady, 199

Duke, Sir Henry (formerly journalist of _Daily Telegraph_), 170, 180

Dulcigno, mountain of, 65

Du Maurier (artist and author of _Trilby_), 287

Duncan, Mr. G. B. (editor), 237

Eckstein, Mrs., 261

Edgington, Miss May (novelist), 278

Edmunds, K.C., Mr. Lewis, 275, 303

Edward VII., King of England, 22, 25;
his exquisite courtliness, 29;
dislike of King “Cléo-pold,” 100;
when Prince of Wales resigned from an exclusive Paris club
because King Leopold had been elected a member, 101, 128,
139, 290

Edwardes, Sir Stanley, 248

Egypt, 147

Elias, Mr., 193

Eliot, George (the novelist), 139

Elmwood, near Broadstairs, 250

Elstree, 198

Empire Theatre, 101

Enver Pasha, his supreme contempt of Britain, 116;
a puppet of the Kaiser, 116

Ernberg, Baroness, 190

Evans, Sir Laming Worthington, 273

_Evening News_, 125

Everett, Percy W. (of _Pearson’s_), 197, 295

Everett & Son (publishers), 193

Exeter, Marquis of, 195

Ezekiel, Book of, 190

Fane, “Cis,” 132

Fascisti, Italian (“The Black Shirts”), 21

Fawside House, Covent Garden, 243

Fell, Dr., a case of “I do not like you,” 202

ffoulkes, Mrs. Maude Chester (authoress), 134, 137, 201, 202

Field, Colonel Cyril (military expert), 245

Fife, the Duke of, 248

Finck, Herman (composer), 202

Flannery, M.P., Sir Fortesque, 248

Fleet Street, 183

Fleury, M. (manager Hôtel de Paris), 304

Florence, 36, 127, 188

Florence Club in Florence, 300;
one of the most exclusive in the world;
its members, British Prince black-balled, 300;
resignation of English members, _en bloc_, 300

Flower, Mr. Newman, 188

Foch, 221

Forbes, Lady Angela, 132

Foreign Office, 259

France, 10

Fraser, Sir John Foster, 273

Fraser, Superintendent (of Scotland Yard), 29

Függer, Countess, 36

Fyvie, Leith, Lord of, 90, 261, 264

Gaiety Theatre, Hastings, 281

Gale, Norman, 188

Gallop, Constantine, 119

Galway, Lord, 261

Gare, Avenue de la, 29

Garrick Club, 183

“_Gawd_,” 302

Genoa, 163

George V., King of England, 22

George, Mr. Lloyd, 170, 251, 268, 273

German Ambassador, 252

German machinations, 89;
war intended by Kaiser, 90, 113, 237;
his scheming, 116

German Military Attaché, 252

German Naval Attaché, 252

German officers openly survey Kentish hills, and deliberate on
sites for guns, 253;
the party returning to London were entertained by German
Ambassador at Carlton House Terrace, 254;
motor signs on roads from Kentish coast to London were marked by
black and white stripes of German official direction posts,
254

German secret agents in London, 243

German Secret Service, their cunning modes of bribery, 253

Germany, 10, 15

Gibbs, Sir Philip (of the _Daily Chronicle_), 82

Gilardoni, Count, 18

Gill, Charles, practical jokes of, 181

Gilli’s in the Via Tornabuoni, Florence, 127

Gilliot, Jules, 213

Giron, M., 143

Gladstone, W. E., 65;
his kindness, 168

Glasgow, 123

Glenny, Charlie, 288

_Globe_, The, 10, 163;
merged into _Pall Mall Gazette_, 177

Government, Campbell-Bannerman’s, 246

Grand Hotel at Belgrade, 69

Grand Hotel, Bulgaria, 85

Grand Hotel, Cettigné, 32

Graves, C. L., 163

Grayson, Rupert (director of Eveleigh Nash’s publishing Co.), 303;
his stories of luck and fortune at Monte Carlo, 303, 304

Greeley, Horace (of New York), 200

Grey, Sir Edward, 16

Grierson, Mr. W. (of Newnes), 195

Griffith, George (author), 187, 197

Griffith-Jones, Rev. Principal, 280

Grossmith, George, Senior, 288

Grosvenor Square, 125, 127

Guards’ Club, 303

Guilbert, Madame, 209

Guildford, 10, 118, 157, 159

Gun-factory, Düsseldorf, 251

Guy’s Hospital, 168

Haggard, Sir Rider, 93, 281

Hahki Pasha, 111

Haldane, Lord, 236

Hall, Sir John, 296

Halsbury, Lord, 170

Ham-Bone Club, 297;
(London’s only really Bohemian Club and run by Bohemians), 298

Hame, “That damned fellow,” 138

Hamilton, Lord Frederic, 138

Hands, Charles (of the _Daily Mail_), 82, 165, 173

Hansard Union, 173

Hapsburgs, the fatal, 34, 35, 37, 140

Harding, George (a stoker, the unknown and actual discoverer of the
Aruwimi, the Forests of Perpetual Night, and the Pigmies), 166

Hardinge, Viscount, 248

Harris-Burland, J. B., 295

Harris, Mr. (of Odhams), 193

Hassall, John (artist), 199;
differentiates the tonic colours of port wine and Bass, 200

Hatchard’s (booksellers), 93

Hawarden, 170

Haynes, Mr. J. H. (well-known telegraphic engineer), 119

Headley, Lord, 90, 261;
his humour and ventriloquism, 264–267

Heddle, Mr. James, 189

Helicopter, details of our new instrument were known in Berlin two
days after its secret trials, 256

Henderson, Mr., 23

Henley, W. E., 188

Hennell, Colonel Sir Reginald, 248

Henniker-Heaton, 215

Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, 144

Herbert, Mrs. of Llanover (mother of Lord Treowen), 275

Herodotus, 147

Herzegovina, 222

Hicks, Sir W. Joynson, 261

Hidden Hand of Germany, 257, 259

Higgs, Mr. T. W., at Bristol, 159

Hirsch, the late Baron de, 26;
his intimate friendship with King Edward, 26;
visits to Monte Carlo, 26;
his death, 27;
left by will one million sterling for poor Jews in Argentina, 27,
101;
his high esteem of Prince of Wales, 28

Hirsch, Baroness de, 27;
her kindness to King Edward (when Prince of Wales), 27;
her wish that when His Royal Highness succeeded to the throne of
Great Britain he would always be kind to the Jews, 28;
her death, 29

Hobbs, Captain E. J. (of Wareham), 159

Hodder-Williams, Sir Ernest, 189

Hoedl, spy of Austria, 82

Hofburg, 42

Hohenzollern, House of, 240

Holland, M.P., Sir William, 248

Home Office, 259

Horne, Sir Robert (ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer), 276

Horsford, Dr. Cyril (laryngologist and aurist), 300

Hôtel Chatham, Paris, 221, 292

Hôtel de l’Europe (Petrograd), 14

Hôtel des Indes, Hague, 238

Hôtel des Palmiers, 215

Hotel Excelsior at Cimiez, 26

Hotel Narenta, Herzegovina, 222

Hotel Normandy, 100

Hoti tribe, 60

Hounslow, 178

Hulton, Sir Edward, 189

Humbert case. _See_ Richmond, Mr. Barry, 206

Humbert, Madame, 205

Huntley and Palmer, 127

Hutchinson, Sir George, 188

Hutchinson, A. S. M. (author), 198

Ileana, Princess, 98

Ilfracombe, 140

Imperial Institute, 150

Imperiale, Marquis, 125

Inchkeith, on the Firth of Forth, 159

India office, 259

Inglefield, Admiral Sir E., 296

International Sporting Club at Monte Carlo, 300