530 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-V 



State, and found him in his usual pleasant mood. Noting 

 on his dinner-service the words, "Facta non verba," I 

 called his attention to them as a singular motto for an 

 eminent lawyer and orator; whereupon he said that, two 

 old members of Congress dining with him recently, one of 

 them asked the other what those words meant, to which 

 the reply was given, "They mean, * Victuals, not talk/ " 

 On the way to my post, I stopped in London and was 

 taken to various interesting places. At the house of my 

 old friend and Yale classmate, George Washburn Smalley, 

 I met a number of very interesting people, and among 

 these was especially impressed by Mr. Meredith Town- 

 shend, whose knowledge of American affairs seemed amaz- 

 ingly extensive and preternaturally accurate. At the 

 house of Sir William Harcourt I met Lord Ripon, about 

 that time Viceroy of India, whose views on dealings with 

 Orientals interested me much. At the Royal Institution 

 an old acquaintance was renewed with Tyndall and Hux- 

 ley; and during an evening with the eminent painter, Mr. 

 Alma-Tadema, at his house in the suburbs, and especially 

 when returning from it, I made a very pleasant acquain- 

 tance with the poet Browning. As his carriage did not 

 arrive, I offered to take him home in mine ; but hardly had 

 we started when we found ourselves in a dense fog, and 

 it shortly became evident that our driver had lost his 

 way. As he wandered about for perhaps an hour, hoping 

 to find some indication of it, Browning 's conversation was 

 very agreeable. It ran at first on current questions, then 

 on travel, and finally on art, all very simply and natu- 

 rally, with not a trace of posing or paradox. Remem- 

 bering the obscurity of his verse, I was surprised at the 

 lucidity of his talk. But at last, both of us becoming 

 somewhat anxious, we called a halt and questioned the 

 driver, who confessed that he had no idea where he was. 

 As good, or ill, luck would have it, there just then emerged 

 from the fog an empty hansom-cab, and finding that its 

 driver knew more than ours, I engaged him as pilot, first 

 to Browning's house, and then to my own. 



