"'Oh, Lord Cairns asked me yesterday the same question; and I said, "I am rather depressed, but I believe my eye is in pretty good spirits."'"
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE TILNEY STREET OUTRAGE—"ARE YOU NOT GOING TO PUT ON THE BLACK CAP, MY LORD?"
One evening, while sitting with some friends in Tilney Street, there was one of the most tremendous explosions ever heard. It seemed as if the world was blown up. But as nothing happened, we did not leave the room, and went on with the conversation.
It was not until the next day it was ascertained that an attempt had been made to blow in Reginald Brett's front door, which was a few houses off, and that it had been perpetrated by some Fenians, whose friends had been awarded penal servitude for life for a similar outrage with dynamite. Why their anger was directed against Mr. Reginald Brett—a most peaceful and excellent man—it was difficult to say, for he was very kind-hearted, and, above all, the son of the Master of the Rolls, who never tried prisoners at all, only counsel.
Having made inquiries the next morning—I don't know of whom, there were such a number of people in Tilney Street—I was astonished to hear some one say, "They meant to pay you that visit, Sir Henry."
"Then they knocked at the wrong door," said I.
The stranger seemed to know me, and I had a little further conversation with him. It turned out he was a Chancery barrister, and a friend of Brett's.
"Why," I asked, "do you think they meant the visit for me?"
"Well," he answered, "it was."