xxiv SUNDAY EVENING GATHERINGS 



445 



played eagerly with his fellow-students at Charing Cross 

 Hospital or with his messmates on the Rattlesnake. But 

 after he taught me the game, somewhere about 1869 or 

 1870, I do not think he ever found time for it again. 



His principal exercise was walking during the holidays. 

 In his earlier days especially, when overwrought by the 

 stress of his life in London, he used to go off with a friend 

 for a week's walking tour in Wales or the Lakes, in Brittany 

 or the Eifel country, or in summer for a longer trip to 

 Switzerland. In this way he " burnt up the waste products," 

 as he would say, of his town life, and came back fresh for 

 a new spell of unintermittent work. 



But, on the whole, the amount of exercise he took was 

 insufficient for his bodily needs. Even the riding pre- 

 scribed for him when he first broke down, became irksome, 

 and w r as not continued very long, although his bodily ma- 

 chine was such as could only be kept in perfect working 

 order by more exercise than he would give. His physique 

 was not adapted to burn up the waste without special 

 stimulus. I remember once, as he and I were walking up 

 Beachy Head, we passed a man with a splendid big chest. 

 ' Ah," said my father regretfully, " if I had only had a chest 

 like that, what a lot of work I could have done." 



When, in 1872, he built his new house in Maryborough 

 Place, my father bargained for two points ; one, that each 

 member of the family should have a corner of his or her 

 own, where, as he used to say, it would be possible to 

 ' consume their own smoke " ; the other, that the common 

 living-rooms should be of ample size. Thus from 1874 

 onwards he was enabled to see something of his many 

 friends who would come as far as St. John's Wood on a 

 Sunday evening. No formal invitation for a special day 

 was needed. The guests came, sometimes more, sometimes 

 fewer, as on any ordinary at-home day. There was a simple 

 informal meal at 6.30 or 7 o'clock, which called itself by 

 no more dignified name than high tea was, in fact, a cold 

 supper with varying possibilities in the direction of dinner 

 or tea. It was a chance medley of old and young friends 

 of the parents and friends of the children, but all ultimately 



