xvii HIS SON'S APPOINTMENT 223 



Taxidermist Departments downstairs. Consequently I had a 

 bad night, and am not good for much to-day. It is very pro- 

 voking, for I am afraid I ought not to come back till Monday. 



It happened much as I expected when I saw that an ex- 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer was at the meeting on Saturday 

 could not stand the Treasury letter, and insisted on declining to 

 comply with their reduction. It will not lead to any good, I am 

 afraid. 



The appointment of his son, Captain Stanley 

 Flower, to the management of the Zoological 

 Gardens at Cairo gave him great pleasure : 



I enclose a letter from Stanley (he writes on August 27, 1898) 

 about a box which must now be on its way to the Museum. 

 When it arrives will you please have its contents distributed 

 according to the list enclosed. I mentioned to you before I 

 left that he might be leaving Bangkok soon, and now I am glad 

 to hear that he has received the appointment of Superintendent 

 of the Zoological Gardens at Cairo, one which is entirely to his 

 taste, and which will be a far more agreeable and healthy place 

 of residence for himself and his family. He is to be there in 

 October. The Zoological Congress seems to have been well 

 attended ; judging from the newspaper reports, most of the 

 foreign nations are well represented. I hope that the London 

 part will be successfully carried out, and that the Museum will be 

 appreciated. 



In October 1898, after the Director had sent in 

 his resignation, he wrote among the last letters of 

 this correspondence : 



MY DEAR FAGAN Your letter of the ist gives me real 

 pleasure. I will keep it among other valued testimonies that 

 my life during the last fourteen years has not been spent 

 altogether in vain. The constant help you have given me 

 throughout is one of the most agreeable memories connected 



