164 THE AYBTON EPISODE 



the way in which a thing is done is often not less important 

 than the thing itself. 



The last scene of this serious interlude was purely farcical. 

 After due examination in outside subjects, a young man was 

 appointed who had been employed at the Gardens two years 

 before, and was described by the Curator as a . * dull young 

 fellow who will not suit us at all.' But protest suddenly became 

 unnecessary. To the First Commissioner's accountant, who 

 came to investigate, the young man, with great good sense, 

 frankly admitted that he was not qualified for the work, and 

 the whole thing fell to the ground. 



From the coming of Sir William Hooker to Kew in March 

 1841, until Ayrton's accession to power, the relations between 

 the Director and his official superiors had always been marked 

 by mutual respect and consideration. Now there was an un- 

 reasonable and arbitrary regime. Even the estimates for Kew 

 were made without taking the Director into consultation, and 

 proposals made to the Treasury for extensive and unsuitable 

 alterations in the Museum, the full cost of which even was 

 not foreseen. 



Again there was a difficulty in regard to the remaining 

 volumes of the Flora of Tropical Africa. The book had been 

 sanctioned by the Treasury in 1864, the cost to appear in the 

 estimates of the Stationery Office. The first volume appeared 

 in 1868, the second in 1871, the arrangement with regard to 

 the former being that their distribution should, for scientific 

 reasons, be in the Director's hands. Now, without enquiry, 

 the remainder of vol. i. was withdrawn from him, and sent with 

 vol. ii. to the Stationery Office for sale. Hooker pointed out 

 the objections to this procedure, adding that in his opinion 

 the copies ought not to be sold. In spite of a letter from 

 the head of the Stationery Department, afterwards printed 

 in the Parliamentary papers, pointing out that Hooker was 

 right, and that the new arrangement would have been incon- 

 sistent with the contract made with the publishers, Messrs. 

 Pieeve, and would have amounted to a breach of faith, the 

 First Commissioner overrode his protests, telling him officially 

 that the Treasury had decided against him and this in the 



