Review oj Reviews, 1/10/13. 



MY FATHER. 



7*5 



but bedraggled and hanging forlornly 

 down, their red dye showing here and 

 there in patches on hat and blouse. The 

 rest of us were hardly in better shape, 

 but we were all intensely amused, except 

 perhaps our visitor, by the scornful way 

 in which we were regarded by the other 

 passengers when we finally boarded the 

 train. 



THE OLD CYCLE. 



He used to derive far greater pleasure 

 from a Sunday school treat than from 

 the most gorgeous garden party. He 

 delighted to have a Salvation Army 

 band playing in his house or grounds, 

 but was bored at a concert, and only 

 once ventured into an opera, and that 

 /in Russia. He enjoyed the theatre, but 

 not as much as he did the local enter- 

 tainments at Hayling Island. He learnt 

 to cycle in the early nineties and found 

 it very handy at Hayling. The machine 

 he used was the only one he ever had, 

 and it looked pretty much of a derelict. 

 It did good work nevertheless, It was 

 never cleaned and seldom oiled. Its 

 tyres managed to keep in the air some- 

 how, but the inner tubes were mosaics 

 of patches. He used to dash off on it 

 to the post, a mile away, every morn- 

 ing. Usually a child was perched up 

 behind him in summer. On one occa- 

 sion, cycling to Portsmouth, a duck de- 

 liberately committed suicide by rushing 

 across and thrusting its head into the 

 cycle's front wheel. The spokes did 

 the rest. Some days later he received a 

 request to pay for the duck, to which he 

 replied he would do so with pleasure, 

 providing he received the bird. This 

 ended the negotiations, as the creature 

 had already provided a Sunday dinner 

 for its owners. 



THE FASHODA INCIDENT. 



Amongst the notable people we met 

 on the European trip beside the Tsar 

 of Russia, were Count Witte, M. 

 Pobyedonostzeff, M. Hilkoff, Mark 

 Twain, John Hays Hammond, all the 

 British, American and Russian Ambas- 

 sadors, and many other diplomatic re- 

 presentatives of the Powers at foreign 

 Courts ; Count Bulow, the French Pre- 

 sident, many cardinals, generals, and 

 an odd admiral or two. In fact, father 



never experienced the slightest difficulty 

 in seeing anyone he wanted to, and the 

 amount of information he collected was 

 extraordinary. We started out just at 

 the time the Fashoda incident threat- 

 ened to plunge England and France 

 into war. During our absence England 

 indulged in an outburst of " drunken 

 Imperialism," the echoes of which we 

 heard all over Europe. To judge by our 

 newspapers, we were spending millions 

 on warlike preparations, feverish activity 

 was reported from dockyard and 

 arsenal, and foreign diplomatists 

 laughed to scorn father's positive asser- 

 tion that this was merely an exaggerated 

 newspaper bluff, and that it was im- 

 probable that £100,000 had been spent 

 altogether. It came out later that no 

 special preparations were made at all, 

 and that the total extra expenditure 

 during the crisis was £50,000 for coal. 

 In making this gigantic bluff the papers 

 did not realise that to show Britain 

 feverishly preparing for war was really 

 a sign of weakness, not strength. The 

 navy was then, and is now, adequately 

 prepared to strike at any moment. 



RUSSIA'S GREAT FINANCE MINISTFR. 



The Fashoda incident certainly added 

 interest to our trip. The Empress of 

 Austria had just been assassinated when 

 we reached Brussels, and we attended 

 the great service for her at the Cathe- 

 dral. In Berlin we found Count Witte 

 staying at our hotel, and, as he dis- 

 claimed any knowledge of German or 

 English, I had to interpret his French, 

 which was not particularly good. A 

 great broad-shouldered man, he was an 

 outstanding illustration of how, even 

 in a country so bureaucratically domin- 

 ated as Russia, individual capacity must 

 tell. He was originally a railway por- 

 ter, and had risen steadily until, as 

 Minister of Finance, he occupied the 

 most important position in Russia. 

 Later he was obliged to resign, but was 

 called upon in his country's extremity, 

 and acted as her representative at Ports- 

 mouth, U.S.A., where he concluded peace 

 with Japan He had a typically Rus- 

 sian face, with a cleverly devised false 

 nose, hardly distinguishable from a real 

 one. 



