1907]' ' Thompson's Death 189 



ing a sufficient army without denuding either France or Algeria of 

 troops. 



" Rivers is fierce against Cromer, especially because Cromer, having 

 been his subordinate in Egypt in 1887, has never acknowledged the 

 fact that the work of financial regeneration there was begun while he, 

 Wilson, was head of the financial commission. This is true. Cromer 

 has always ignored every reform in Egypt effected before 1883, the 

 date of his own arrival there as Consul General. Of Riaz Pasha 

 Rivers speaks with affection, and of how Riaz had helped him on the 

 financial commission. 



" I have had a correspondence with Malet in the ' Times ' about the 

 passage in my ' Secret History,' where I record that I went to Down- 

 ing Street to get him ordered, for his safety's sake, on board ship just 

 before the bombardment of Alexandria. Malet insists that by this 

 I meant I had got him ' recalled,' which certainly was not in my mind. 

 The dispute with Malet was of no importance, but the ' Times ' has 

 taken occasion to vent its spleen or rather Moberly Bell's spleen against 

 me in a leading article, to which by Rivers' advice, I have replied, 

 showing Moberly Bell's part in the affair. 



" 30M Oct. — Cromer has made a speech in the City of the most 

 rampant bureaucratic kind, and Grey has refused again to release 

 the Denshawai prisoners. 



" 14th Nov. — Broadly called on me in connection with my ' Times ' 

 pamphlet. Then to Neville's studio in Chelsea, where I am sitting 

 to him for a portrait in Arab dress, and from that on to lunch with 

 Button at Fulham. I found Button established there in a delightful 

 old house in Church Row called ' The Hermitage,' with a large open 

 hall and a garden behind it adjoining the Bishop of London's garden 

 which he has filled with his marble vases and well-heads brought from 

 Italy, among them some really fine things. 



" Button leads a solitary life at Fulham as if in the country, never 

 going into London, and depending chiefly on his clerical neighbours 

 for his society. He took me out after luncheon for a short walk., 

 and passing the churchyard he pointed out to me old Lord Ranelagh's 

 grave there. On it we were surprised to find some newly-cut flowers, 

 all red ones, laid. This, although the old fellow had been dead for 

 twenty years. 



" As I was leaving Chapel Street in the evening to return to New- 

 buildings a note reached me from Meynell announcing Francis Thomp- 

 son's death, and asking me to write a memorial of him in the ' Academy.' 

 This I did, and it was so arranged that nothing was known of Thomp- 

 son's death till mine and a number more articles about him were 

 ready to print. This accounted in some measure for the sudden in- 



