FIFTY YEARS OF A SHOWMAN'S LIFE 



and they can do that just as well as you. No 

 use having half a dozen fellows on to a job that 

 can be done just as well by one." He had 

 a wonderful memory, not merely for incidents 

 but for facts and figures, as anyone who ever 

 heard him run off horseflesh pedigrees would 

 admit. 



Like many others, whose memory stands them 

 in good stead, he had no liking for written memo- 

 randa, and, usually regarded official papers either 

 as mere superfluities or simply designed for 

 harassing purposes. His epistolary style was of 

 the very briefest, and, in all my secretarial ex- 

 perience, I have never corresponded with anyone 

 who could pack so much meaning in so few words 

 as he could. He served in the Crimea, and once 

 told me that the best thing that ever happened 

 to him there was the great storm at Balaclava, 

 which, as may be remembered, wrought fearful 

 havoc both on land and sea. He explained the 

 matter as follows : " We were encamped upon 

 the heights, and, while we suffered considerable 

 inconvenience from the effects of the storm, the 

 wind did us one good turn, for it blew clean away 

 the whole of the regimental books, papers and 

 accounts, which had been nothing but a nuisance 

 to us from the time we landed. For years after- 

 wards, when a document was wanted, which 

 couldn't be found, its absence was always accounted 

 for in one way it was blown away at Balaclava. 

 As it was too much trouble to the War Office to 

 prove the contrary, we heard no more about it,, 

 and it's astonishing what a lot of fooling about it 

 saved us." He concluded with a pious ejaculation 



196 



