254 Written Sketches

On this the conversation dropped, and we parted. Later
on we met again and Day said :

"Do you know who that lady was—the one standing at
your elbow when we were talking just now ? "

" No/' said I.

"That," he replied, "was Mrs.1 A. B."

And it was so.

Snapshotting a Bishop

I must some day write about how I hunted'the late Bishop
of Carlisle with my camera, hoping to shoot him when he was
sea-sick crossing from Calais to Dover, and how St. Somebody
protected him and said I might shoot him when he was well,
but not when he was sea-sick. I should like to do it in the
manner of the Odyssey :

. . . And the steward went round and laid them all on the
sofas and benches and he set a beautiful basin by each,
variegated and adorned with flowers, but it contained no
water for washing the hands, and Neptune sent great waves
that washed over the eyelet-holes of the cabin. But when
it was now the middle of the passage and a great roaring arose
as of beasts in the Zoological Gardens, and they promised
hecatombs to Neptune if he would still the raging of the
waves. . . .

At any rate I shot him and have him in my snap-shot book,
but he was not sea-sick. [1892.]

Homer and the Basins

When I returned from Calais last December, after spending
Christmas at Boulogne according to my custom, the sea was
rough as I crossed to Dover and, having a cold upon me, I
went down into the second-class cabin, cleared the railway
books off one of the tables, spread out my papers and con-
tinued my translation, or rather analysis, of the Iliad. Several
people of all ages and sexes were on the sofas and they soon
began to be sea-sick. There was no steward, so I got them
each a basin and placed it for them as well as I could ; then
I sat down again at my table in the middle and went on with
my translation while they were sick all round me. I had to