THE VILLAGE : IN AND ABOUT IT 153 



hotel leaning on the arm of an equerry or 

 some such attendant, whose duty, one supposes, 

 would be to nudge his master when any saluta- 

 tions had to be done. A small crowd of butchers' 

 and bakers' boys and the like had gathered to 

 stare at the equipage, and the blind King bowed 

 graciously right and left to an unappreciative 

 public, that simply stared at him without the 

 least sign of respect. 



The one branch of the royal family that kept 

 up closer connection with Kew, till quite lately, 

 was the Cambridges. The good-natured and 

 popular Prince Adolphus had his town residence 

 at Cambridge House, Piccadilly, afterwards 

 occupied by Lord Palmerston, now the Naval 

 and Military Club, known to cabmen as the " In 

 and Out," from the drive behind which it stands 

 back from the street. The Duke of Cambridge 

 held also Cambridge Cottage, marked by its 

 portico, on the west side of the Green ; and it 

 was in the church here that he gave amusement 

 and scandal by his habit of talking aloud to 

 himself, after a trick of his father's. When the 

 parson read out " Let us pray," the Duke would 

 respond, "With all my heart," but when the 

 prayer for rain came on, he audibly remarked 



