92 LORD LILFORD 



touche-d-tout or beg me gently to keep quiet for 

 a few minutes, until he was ready to be teased 

 and questioned afresh. I think we were very 

 completely in sympathy. Then I have memories 

 of steam-launch excursions up the river, of 

 picnics, and of lingering in the twilight on the 

 way back, while my father sang us song after 

 song, and made the men perform in turn. My 

 father was never in bad spirits all his life, I 

 should think, and his cheerfulness was not of 

 the jarring, hateful type — the resolute mechani- 

 cal kind. It was really stimulating to be with 

 him. He made friends wherever he went and 

 we had many at Dartmouth. Whole days were 

 spent out in the open fishing for whiting, and 

 we often went ashore in the evenings to our 

 friends, my father making the company merry 

 with his songs of all nations. You have 

 mentioned his facility for Latin languages. I 

 have a special favourite among his songs — the 

 tale, in Sardinian dialect, I fancy — of a father 

 who goes to the fair and buys toys of many sorts 

 for his children ; as the articles are enumerated, 

 the noise appropriate to each — cannon, drum, 

 trumpet, sheep, donkey, &c. — is roughly repro- 



