XXV1 MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR 
clothes. He hated his best clothes, and clung to his 
oldest until they were forcibly taken away from him 
by his wife or one of his daughters. In connection 
with his clothes an amusing story is told. The 
daughter who kept house for him had asked him 
to speak to the gardener one morning about his 
clothes and to tell him he really must come to work 
in more respectable garments. In the afternoon 
there was a tennis party at the Rectory, and, while 
they were at tea, Mr. Foster-Melliar came and 
joined the party, dressed in the most disreputable 
jacket that could be imagined. The sleeves ended 
somewhere near his elbows, and the bottom part 
of his coat barely came below the upper end of his 
trousers. His daughter was horrified. ‘‘ Where 
on earth did you get that coat from, father?’ she 
asked. And amidst general laughter he explained 
how he and the gardener always hung their coats 
on adjoining pegs in the greenhouse before going 
to work, and that, by mistake, he had taken and put 
on the gardener’s. ‘‘ But the amusing part is,” 
he added, ‘‘ that I have spent the whole day blowing 
him up for wearing such disgraceful clothes.”’ 
To the mind of the writer of this brief memoir, he 
was a pattern country parson in very deed. He 
knew the people, knew their speech, understood their 
ways of thought. He knew all about agriculture, 
and could talk informingly with either squire, farmer, 
or labourer. He had a great fund of sympathy, and 
could always listen to an old woman’s troubles and 
ailments, and find a gentle amusement in it without 
hurting her feelings. He had, too, a power, a force 
of character that he used entirely for good, and by 
which all with whom he came in contact benefited. 
