Views upon this matter were heard from every possible standpoint; men of varying religious persuasions from the Scientific Agnostic to the distant Parsee lent breadth and elasticity to the fascinating subject. Its chemical aspect was admirably described (with experiments) by Sir Julius Wobble, the Astronomer Royal, and its theological results by the Reader in Burmesan.
Lambkin was best known for the simple eloquence in which he could clothe the most difficult and confused conceptions. It was on this account that he was asked to give the Closing Address with which the Proceedings terminated.
Before reciting it I must detain the reader with one fine anecdote concerning this occasion, a passage worthy of the event and of the man. Lambkin (as I need hardly say) was full of his subject, enthusiastic and absorbed. No thought of gain entered his head, nor was he the kind of man to have applied for payment unless he believed money to be owing to him. Nevertheless it would have been impossible to leave unremunerated such work as that which follows. It was decided by the authorities to pay him a sum drawn from the fees which the visitors had paid to visit the College Fish-Ponds, whose mediæval use in monkish times was explained in a popular style by one who shall be nameless, but who gave his services gratuitously.
After their departure Mr. Large entered Lambkin’s room with an envelope, wishing to add a personal courtesy to a pleasant duty, and said:
“I have great pleasure, my dear Lambkin, in presenting you with this Bank Note as a small acknowledgment of your services at the Conference.”
Lambkin answered at once with:
“My dear Large, I shall be really displeased if you estimate that slight performance of a pleasurable task at so high a rate as ten pounds.”
Nor indeed was this the case. For when Lambkin opened the enclosure (having waited with delicate courtesy for his visitor to leave the room) he discovered but five pounds therein. But note what follows—Lambkin neither mentioned the matter to a soul, nor passed the least stricture upon Large’s future actions, save in those matters where he found his colleague justly to blame: and in the course of the several years during which they continually met, the restraint and self-respect of his character saved him from the use of ignoble weapons whether of pen or tongue. It was a lesson in gentlemanly irony to see my friend take his place above Large at high table in the uneasy days that followed.
THE ADDRESS
My dear Friends,