154 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



eternal conflict between the ideal and the 

 practicable ; and those who knew Tegetmeier 

 can easily imagine that occasional differences of 

 opinion would arise between him and the com- 

 mercial or advertisement department of the 

 house, and this, of course, would be more notice- 

 able in the case of the Queen than the Field. 

 But everybody knew that " Old Teg's " motives 

 were pure and disinterested : he was a journalist, 

 and not a purveyor of printed matter dressed up 

 to tickle the palate of the public, and everyone 

 easily forgave him an occasional outburst, always 

 of short duration. As one who evidently knew 

 him well -wrote in an obituary notice in a 

 prominent provincial paper*: " Among journalists 

 in London he was held in the highest honour. 

 There was no more delightful or kinder colleague 

 or companion, and out of his long experience 

 there was always something of profit at the 

 disposal of his friends. His memories of the 

 Fleet Street of the nineteenth century were full 

 of interest, for he had known in his time everyone 

 worth knowing." A colleague at Windsor House 

 wrote of him that he dearly loved a joke, even 

 when made at his own expense, as when a candid 

 friend once characterised him as " the subtlest 

 of all the beasts of the Field." On another 

 occasion, shortly after the publication of his 

 article on the habits of the axolotl, and its 



* The Bath Herald, November 21st, 1912. 



