106 LIFE OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY CHAP. VI 



Lord Eosse took him aside and informed him that he 

 had seen Sir C. Trevelyan, the Under Secretary to 

 the Treasury, who said there would be no difficulty 

 in the matter if it were properly laid before the 

 Prime Minister, Lord Derby. To Lord Derby there- 

 fore he went, and was told that Mr. Huxley should 

 go to the Treasury and arrange matters in person 

 with Trevelyan. At the same time the indignant 

 tone of his letter to the Hydrographer seemed to 

 have done good ; he was invited to explain matters 

 in person, and was granted the leave he asked for. 



Everything now seemed to point to a speedy 

 solution of his difficulties. The promise of a grant, 

 of course, did nothing immediate, but assured him 

 a good position, and settled all the scruples of the 

 Admiralty with regard to time. "You have no 

 notion," he writes, "of the trouble the grant has 

 cost me. It died a natural death till I wrote to the 

 Duke in March, and brought it to life again. The 

 more opposition there is, the more determined I am 

 to carry it through." But he was doomed to a 

 worse disappointment than before. Trevelyan re- 

 ceived him very civilly, but had heard nothing on 

 the matter from Lord Derby, and accordingly sent 

 him in charge of his private secretary to see Lord 

 Derby's secretary. The latter had seen no papers 

 relating to any such matter, and supposed Lord 

 Derby had not brought them from St. James's 

 Square, "but promised to write to me as soon as 

 anything was learnt. I look upon it as adjourned 



