216 



LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



and Mules is due to the fact that Welsh ponies 

 and horses are not mentioned therein." I believe 

 the old man hugely enjoyed the joke, for of 

 course his book on horses, zebras, etc., had been 

 a great success. 



In his old age, at any rate, Tegetmeier lived 

 with the greatest simplicity, eating simple food 

 and drinking very little wine ; spirits he had 

 rarely drunk, and latterly he became, at any 

 rate in theory, an abstainer. After his retire- 

 ment from the Field in 1907, and especially when 

 his eyesight became dim and he could no longer 

 read, he began to realise that his powers were 

 failing him, and he would often write, through 

 his secretary, letters bewailing his infirmity, 

 which he then characteristically enough exagger- 

 ated. In a letter to his old friend whom I have 

 so often quoted, he wrote years before his break- 

 up : "I am afraid I am breaking up. I am very 

 tender-footed indeed, and getting blinder every 

 day, but I can't expect to go on for ever." And 

 to me he wrote in 1907, just five years before 

 his death: "I am very much obliged to you for 

 the cutting and your letter. I am sorry to 

 inform you that my sight is rapidly decreasing 

 and I feel in a very unsatisfactory condition ; 

 my mental powers are breaking up rapidly, but 

 what can a man expect at ninety-two ? Mother 

 sends her kindest love to you all, and will be glad 

 to see any of you at an} r time." The " Yours 



