Subjoined is one of his friendly little notes, full of the quiet happy humour that made him so welcome a guest in every friend's house.
Hothfield Place,
Ashford, Kent.
My dear Pym
I shall be proud to welcome you and Mrs. Pym on Wednesday the 26th, but why St. George's Hall? Why not go at once to a play and not to an entertainment? Plays at night. Entertainments in the afternoon. Besides, we are so empty in the evenings now, the new piece being four weeks overdue. Anyhow, I hope to see you at 8 Weymouth Street on Nov. 26th, at any hour after my work, say 10.15 or 10.30, and so on, every quarter of an hour.
"I am dwelling in the Halls of the Great, waited on by powdered menials, who rather look down on me, I think, and hide my clothes, and lay things out I don't wish to put on, and button my collar on to my shirt, and my braces on to my ——, and when I try to throw the braces over my shoulders I hit my head with the buckle, and get my collar turned upside down, and tear out the buttons in my endeavours to get it right; and they fill my bath so full, that the displacement caused by my unwieldy body sends quarts of water through the ceiling on to the drawing-room—the Red Drawing-room. Piano covered with the choicest products of Eastern towns. Luckily the party is small, so we only occupy the Dragon's Blood Room, so perhaps they won't notice it. But a truce to fooling till Nov. 26.—Yours sincerely,
R. Corney Grain."
Nov. 16, 1890.
He was one of the most gifted, warmest-hearted friends; his cynicism was all upon the surface, and was never unkind, the big heart beat true beneath. His premature death has eclipsed the honest gaiety of this nation—"he should have died hereafter."