Salamanaca, the great Madrid financier, which the authorities permitted to be attached to the Royal train from Madrid to Saragossa. After travelling all night in terribly cold weather, early in the morning one of His Majesty's aides-de-camp appeared and commanded us to 'join the Royal luncheon party at 11 a.m.' Alas! there is no rose without its thorn. The bitter weather had frozen all the water, and our faces were as black as sweeps'! We stared at one another—we were both black in the face. What was to be done? Good gracious! we could not sit before a king with such dark expressions as these!
"Gallenga was a man of infinite resource, and was apparently undismayed by this almost insurmountable obstacle.
"'Ever try candles'? he asked. 'The dry wash process. See,' and he took down some of the wax candles with which the carriage was lighted, and commenced rubbing his face with one of them. With infinite trust in Gallenga's wisdom I did likewise, and really, after some ten minutes' persistent rubbing, our faces certainly looked more respectable, though somewhat waxy and ghastly. The aide-de-camp entered, and we went forth to eat with the King. Now, the King's saloon was uncomfortably warm—very uncomfortably warm—and as the lunch proceeded it became inconveniently hot. When the coffee and cigarette stage arrived our faces were converted into a series of small streams—tears, sir, tears, such as tender fathers shed! In vain I tried to hide them, my pocket handkerchief was useless, and I left the Royal presence with a countenance like—but we will draw a veil over my features!"
"At the Derby."
I suggested that perhaps Mr. Sala knew Sothern—"Dundreary" Sothern.
"Knew him, yes," came the reply. "Sothern and I went to the Derby together once. I was very elaborately got up, and as neat and trim as a new pin. Now, I don't think I was in a frame of mind to get out of temper easily—I was in a capital humour, and never in a jollier mood.
"'Look here, Sala,' said Sothern, 'I'll bet you a new hat that you'll lose your temper before the Derby is run.'
"'Done!' I cried, and I felt another twenty-five shillings rattling in my trousers' pocket. Away went Sothern.
"Five minutes after a red-jacketed fellow came up and commenced brushing me down. I didn't want it, but I gave him a shilling. Then another came up—similar process, another shilling. At last altogether five brushes had been up, and at the sixth I seized the fellow and brushed him down.
"I'll trouble you for a new hat,' said somebody, quietly tapping me on the shoulder. It was Sothern.
Then we "remembered" some of the famous men the great journalist has come in contact with during his career. To begin with, there was Lord Brougham. It was Brougham who really taught Mr. Sala to speak in public. Before Mr. Sala made his first important public speech, Brougham had him round at his house and walked up and down his dining-room for an hour and more,
