“Who says that happiness is far to seek? Here have I passed a happy Christmas week. Christmas at Membland—all was bright and gay, Without one shadow till this final day, When Mrs. Baring said, ‘Before you go You must write something in the book, you know.’ I must write something—that’s all very well, But what to write about I cannot tell. Where shall I look for help?—it must be found, If I survey this Christmas party round. There’s Ned himself, our most delightful host, Or Mrs. Baring, she could help me most, The Uncles too, if I their time might rob. Shall I ask Tom? or try my luck with Bob? Madame Neruda, ah, would she begin, We’d write the story of a violin, And tell how first the inspiration came Which took the world by storm and gave her fame. There’s Harry Bourke, with him I can’t go wrong, Could I but write the words he’d sing the song. So sung, my verse would haply win a smile From his bright beauty of the sister Isle, Who comes prepared her country’s pride to save, For every Saxon is at once her slave; But no, I must not for assistance look, So, Mrs. Baring, you must keep your book For cleverer pens and I no more will trouble you, But just remain your baffled bard.”
Mr. Webb was a great feature in the children’s life of many families. With his beady, bird-like eye and his impassive face he made jokes so quietly that you overheard them rather than heard them. One day out shooting on a steep hill in Newton Wood, in which there were woodcock and dangerous shots, my father said to him, “You take the middle drive, Godfrey; it’s safer, _medio tutissimus_.” “Is there any chance of an _Ibis_?” Mr. Webb asked quietly. Another time, he went out duck-shooting. He was asked afterwards whether he had shot many. “Not even a _Mallard imaginaire_,” was his answer.
Another Christmas event was the French play we used to act under the stage management of Chérie.
When I was six I played the part of an old man with a bald forehead and white tufts of hair in a play called _Le Maître d’Ecole_, and I remember playing the part of Nicole in scenes from the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ at Christmas in 1883, and an old witch called Mathurine in a play called _Le Talisman_ in January 1884.