"I only hope that the instruction you have received here will stick as well." "Better, sir, I hope," I retorted, "or any mop will bring it down."
For the Christmas holidays I went to Highgate to Mr. Malet, son of Malet du Pan, a native of Geneva who came to England in 1798 and died at Richmond in 1800. Louis Malet had married my grand-aunt, Lucy Baring; she died in 1815 and then he married one of the Merivales, by whom he became the father of Sir Louis Malet, afterwards Permanent Secretary for India, knighted in 1868. He was the first man who ever gave me a "tip," as a schoolboy, of half a crown. He died in 1890. One day I met him at the Duke of Bedford's at Endsleigh, and reminded him of the circumstance, but he had forgotten it. It is a rare thing for anyone to forget his good deeds; what we do forget are our misdeeds.
We attended a hideous little church at the corner of the Square, of the very vilest design of the late eighteenth century ecclesiastical architecture. I cannot recall whether we had any music, but I suppose we had, as there was a girls' school in the opposite gallery to that in which we were seated. But, if so, it has left no impression on my mind. If good, I should have remembered it; if excruciatingly bad, I should have remembered it. Probably it was mediocre and characterless, like the sermons. These latter ran in the usual groove. How well I came to know that groove. We began Trinity season with an Apologia for Jael the wife of Heber. "Blessed above women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be: Blessed shall she be above women in the tent"—that was the inevitable text. I turned to the boy sitting next to me and whispered: "That woman was a sneaking murderess. I would give all my pocket-money to be in a room with her for a quarter of an hour; I'd kick her round it till I had kicked the toes out of my boots, and then have thrown her out of the window." On a subsequent Sunday we had the saying of Ahab to Elijah, "Art thou he that troubleth Israel," and the prophet's reply or else "The still, small voice." I have always thought that the story of Elijah in the cave and the vision of the Almighty passing by was infinitely poetical. But, oh, what slops of thin twaddle did the preachers annually pour over the tale! Soon after, we had, of course, Abana and Pharpar, rivers
