THE PROFESSOR'S PIPES 269 



to quite a diflferent and much more trivial cause, but 

 one so characteristic of Newton that I cannot omit it 

 here. The Professor's pipes, of which he had many, 

 each being in turn allotted its spell of work, were all 

 precisely similar. They were of briar, a short quadran- 

 gular basal stem carrying a stout bowl with a chamfer 

 at the mouth, below which was a single ring of fine 

 beading. The real stem was of chicken bone, fitted in 

 with a cork plug. When, being asked if I would like 

 to smoke, I drew a precisely similar article from my 

 pocket, Newton was delighted. There could be no 

 stronger evidence of my common sense and intelligence, 

 and from that moment I was "approved." After that, 

 I believe, I might have proclaimed myself a Socialist, or 

 proposed that women should dine in Hall, or spoken of 

 S as the greatest living ornithologist with im- 

 punity. All would have been forgiven. 



That first evening was the forerunner of countless 

 others. For, though I ceased to be resident after 

 taking my degree, and for many years was incertm sedis 

 as the phrase goes — a wanderer over the earth — I always 

 came back to Cambridge to work up my collections and 

 always went to Newton's Sunday evenings as a matter 

 of course. That was the great thing about Newton — 

 one always found him where one left him, not only 

 socially, but topographically. One might brave the 

 Arctic ice or disappear for a year or two into the heart 

 of the Dark Continent, but when one returned with no 

 little of the Rijp van Winkel feeling at heart, there was 

 Newton sitting in his chair making spills, just as 

 one left him. It almost made one wonder whether all 

 our past adventures were not a dream, and our moving 

 accidents by flood and field mere figments of the 

 imagination. 



No one, indeed, could be more immutable than 

 Newton in his daily doings, which were all ruled on the 

 Medo-Persic plan. I do not precisely remember his 

 hours, but I am pretty certain that a good deal of his 

 work was done at night, and hence — though hardly in 



