Adventures in Clubland--The Last Bohemian in Paris--“Uncle Smith” and the Junior Garrick Club--A Night Drive with W. S. Penley and its Result--We Sell Up the Junior Garrick--The Crichton--Our “Lions” of the Savage--Society Establishes the Lyric Club--I Dine with La Belle Otero before Her Début--A Tragedy of Leicester Square--Earl Roberts at My Suggestion becomes President of the New Vagabonds--The Argonauts--Tales of the Lyric Club--The Devonshire Club, and Once Crockford’s in the Days of the Dandies--The Exclusive Crimes Club and What We Do There--Mysteries of the Ham-Bone Club.
I have known a good many clubs, and more clubmen of various social standing.
My earliest club was a little congregation that used to meet every night, in my student days, in Paris, at a table in the Café Vachette, in the Boul’ Mich’. Paul Deschanel, my fellow student who afterwards became President of the Republic, Spiridion--the great painter whose “Sappho” is so well known--and Revillion, who is Préfet of Basses-Alpes, were members, with a dozen others. We called ourselves the Beggars Club, and dined frugally each night, the meal usually ending in some “rag” or other. We drank nothing more intoxicating than a _framboise_, an _orgeat_, or a _café-cognac_, known as a _jus de chapeau_, when funds permitted. We were beggars because we begged francs from one another.
Often on my visiting Paris nowadays I eat a meal alone in that same well-remembered corner, where I used to sit when a fellow-student of so many who have since made their mark. Some are dead, while others occupy high positions in literature, art, politics, and medicine. My thoughts wander back to the Bohemia in Paris that has long ago been a thing of the past--the world where a man is judged neither by his pocket nor his coat, but only by his real worth as a sterling good fellow.
It is perhaps not more than seven years ago when, one summer’s evening, while passing along the Boulevard de Clichy, I came across a tall, cadaverous old friend of my youth, Georges Brandenbourg, the famous journalist of the _Figaro_. He was dressed in his old-fashioned flat-brimmed silk hat, much worn, a frock-coat green with age, very baggy trousers, and a flowing black cravat.
“Ah! _mon cher_ Le Queux!” he cried, patting me on the back. “Welcome to Paris again! Let’s have a drink!”
I was compelled to have a glass of absinthe with him, and then, while we were gossiping about the Beggars Club of the old days, he suddenly said:
“But you must dine with me to-night. Oh, you must, my dear fellow! I will accept no excuse. I have to do my _Figaro_ article afterwards, but we must dine first. Yes, you must dine with me.”
So we went forth again into the Boulevard, where my dear old Bohemian friend stopped at a butcher’s, bought half a kilo of “biftek,” which we roasted together over the gas-stove in his carpetless high-up room.
And it tasted sweeter to me, Bohemian that I am, than the very best dinner at the Ritz.
Two months later he died of septic pneumonia, and with him passed the last of the old-fashioned Paris Bohemians familiar to readers of Du Maurier’s _Trilby_. His biographical notice was excellently written by my friend Ernest Daudet.
After “The Beggars” in Paris, the next club of which I became a member after coming to London as a journalist was the Junior Garrick, the premises of which were on the eastern corner of Adelphi Terrace. In the centre was the Savage, which still exists, and on the western corner the Crichton. I was a member of all three of them.
In those days of comparative poverty, before I joined the _Globe_, I went mostly to the Junior Garrick, because if I had no money with which to pay for my dinner--as was often the case--the accommodating hall-porter would lend me a small sum on my cheap watch-and-chain. How many times that watch-and-chain went backwards and forwards I could not count. But I could always rely on a good square club meal at the Junior Garrick.
We were a merry Bohemian crowd of literary men and actors, including Augustus Moore, Eric Mackay--who wrote _Love-Letters of a Violinist_--Linton, the landscape-painter, Beerbohm Tree, George R. Sims, old George Grossmith, who had just finished newspaper reporting at Bow Street, George Lay, the theatrical solicitor. Sir George Lewis, Penley, Charlie Glenney, William Terris, the actor, Dan Leno, then earning about five pounds a week and very glad to get a “shop,” Brandon Thomas, who wrote _Charley’s Aunt_, Henry Pettit, young Harry Irving, and a host of kindred spirits. Most of us were in those days a very fourth-rate lot in all our professions, just as was our dub. Its furniture was extremely shabby, and its only claim to distinction was that it was established in an old Adams house and had on its walls many oil paintings of considerable value.
When the bailiffs were put in those pictures were carefully considered, and when at last we were sold up, the hall-porter’s book, which everyone had to sign, sold for a big price because of the autographs of the members and their distinguished friends.
I recollect a little incident one Saturday night at the Junior Garrick.
Penley, who was playing in _The Private Secretary_, Charlie Glenney, who was “resting” and myself had dined together at the club and had gone with Penley to the theatre. The house was crowded, so we spent the evening in “Spalding’s” dressing-room, and after Penley had rubbed off his grease-paint and changed out of his clerical attire he suggested that we should have supper at Rule’s, in Maiden Lane, which we did.
Over the meal Glenney suggested that we should both spend Sunday at his house out at Isleworth, an invitation that we accepted.
So into the Strand we sauntered, long after midnight, and Glenney, hailing a passing hansom cab, said:
“Look here, cabby, how much do you want to take us three to Isleworth?”
“Well, sir, I don’t know where the devil it is, but I’ll take yer for a quid!”
The bargain was fixed. We three wedged ourselves into the cab and drove westward, trotting along Piccadilly, Knightsbridge, and Kensington, where I think I must have fallen asleep.
At any rate, when I again opened my eyes I found that we were at a standstill in the country, with the sun shining and the old horse quietly grazing on the grass beside the road.
I nudged Penley, who woke with a start, and in his thin, squeaky voice exclaimed:
“Good Lord! Where are we?”
“I don’t know, old man,” was my reply; “there’s a breath of country air anyhow.”
He pushed up the trap-door in the roof and shouted in his clerical voice:
“Hi, cabby! Where are we?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied a sleepy voice from above. “But we’ll go and see.”
And he whipped up the old horse to explore, when at last we found ourselves well on the Portsmouth road, near Esher, very far from Glenney’s house. We had breakfast at the Bear, and it was high noon before we arrived at Isleworth.
The Crichton Club was but a weak imitation of the Junior Garrick and did not last very long. Most of its members were also the habitués of the Junior Garrick, and on its collapse some of us went to the Yorick, in Bedford Street, Covent Garden, founded by “Uncle Smith,” once the leading light of the Junior Garrick. Others got themselves elected by hook or by crook to the Savage.
Neither the premises of the Savage nor its members need any description by me. Thirty years ago the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward, used often to preside at our weekly house-dinners, and the guests included the greatest men of the day. I can recall those dinners, when we had Stanley, Nansen--who wrote his name on the green wall, where one can see it still--half a dozen Lord Mayors and as many Cabinet Ministers, foreign diplomats and statesmen galore, as our guests, while there contributed to our post-prandial entertainments such well-known men as Rutland Barrington, George Grossmith, Courtice Pounds, Toft the sculptor, Phil May, Alfred Praga, and dozens of others who were world-famous.
I have heard Alfred Praga, the President of the Society of Miniaturists, tell an amusing story of his introduction to the Savage Club.
“Phil May was my sponsor at this club, and on the day of my election he perpetrated a bit of ‘spoof’ the effect of which I have hardly lived down yet--after a membership of over twenty-five years.
“On introducing me as a new member in the bar I noticed he made some _sotto voce_ remark that I--naturally flattered--thought were only complimentary things about me, and that he wished to spare my blushes. I afterwards learned that he told the fellows that I was immensely wealthy, and was equal to anything they could order in the way of drinks, and could simply buy the club up if I wanted to! Some took advantage of this, but others declined on the ground that they would never be able to return the compliment to a Crœsus like myself. Alas! I had many an occasion afterwards on which I was compelled to make him explain away his little joke, and only gradually was I able to take my proper place as a humble exponent of one of the great impecunious professions.”
After being a member of the Savage some ten years, Max Pemberton resigned, and so did I. Why, I really cannot tell to this day.
Perhaps it was because I had been invited to join the Committee of the Lyric Club, the handsome and luxurious premises of which had just been built at the corner of Whitcomb Street and Coventry Street, just off Leicester Square.
It was a Society club, of which Lord Lonsdale was the chief founder. It possessed all sorts of innovations, including a big private theatre, where theatrical shows could be given on Sunday evenings, and private dining-rooms fitted as yacht cabins, Indian bungalows, etc., where the food was in keeping with the desired effect. Dinner in the yacht cabin was served by stewards in uniform, and in the Indian bungalow by Indian servants, and so forth.
It was the first club of its kind to have lady guests, and its chief feature was its Sunday-night theatrical entertainments. The club appealed to me as a Bohemian.
Indeed, I was a member of the Lyric Club all through the innumerable vicissitudes it withstood for many years. At last it died and was resuscitated as the Prince of Wales’s Club, under which title it dwindled away and was closed for a long time. It later became the Motor Club.
Each time I pass its portico to-day a sad tragedy is recalled to me, and which I will now relate.
Living in the Rue des Petit Champs, in Paris, was a friend of mine, Henri Jurgens, the well-known impresario. One afternoon, meeting me in the American bar of the Hôtel Chatham, over which the ever-humorous “Johnnie” so long presided, he invited me to dine with him at his flat.
“I found two new girls the other day, singing and dancing at a little café in Marseilles. They are coming to dine with me to-night and I’m giving them a trial turn at Olympia afterwards,” he said. “Come and dine too.”
I accepted, and found two very handsome, dark-eyed, and very modest young French girls. Provençal from their accent, neatly but poorly dressed, wearing cotton blouses and dark skirts.
It was a merry meal, during which Jurgens urged them not to be frightened at appearing before a Paris audience.
“They are no more critical than they are in Marseilles,” he assured them.
The elder was a dancer, and the other, a few months her junior, a café singer.
While we sat in a box in the theatre they went on one after the other, among the “early turns,” and both were voted successes. The dancer executed a Spanish dance with castanets, showing wonderful agility, while the other sang two gay chansonettes with a splendid voice and looked very charming in her stage dress.
The dancer was afterwards known as La Belle Otero, and the singer was her friend, Liane de Vries. In the later years of their huge successes, when they both became the rage of Paris and of London, and earned huge salaries, I often reflected on that night at M. Jurgens’s flat.
About a year after their first appearance in Paris, Mademoiselle de Vries, who was notable for her great beauty, came to London to sing at the Alhambra, and, knowing her well, I invited her to sing at the Lyric Club one Sunday night.
She came, and delighted the audience, which consisted mostly of well-known Society people. Afterwards she had supper with me, and then, as we sat together in the corner of the room, she told me in confidence that M. Jurgens had proposed marriage to her.
“I have refused three times,” she said. “He is such a dear, and has been so very good to me, yet I really cannot marry a man I do not love. This morning I had a telegram from him. He will be here to-morrow, so I shall leave London as early as I can in the morning, as I do not want to meet him.”
“Where shall you go?”
“I really don’t know. I have written to the Alhambra management terminating my engagement.”
That was all she would tell me; but she seemed greatly perturbed.
Presently, while she was standing in the hall with her cloak on, and I was getting into my coat, a cab stopped and my friend Jurgens, who was a member of the club, dashed in.
The girl gave vent to an exclamation of amazement and he excitedly persuaded her to go outside with him and get into the cab. For nearly half an hour the cab remained there, while the pair held an animated conversation.
Then they drove off. That was the last I ever saw of my poor friend Jurgens. Next day he telegraphed me farewell from Dover, and that same night he committed suicide in his flat in Paris.
That is why I can never pass the corner of Whitcomb Street and Coventry Street without a painful memory.
* * * * *
Some seventeen years ago I followed my old friend George R. Sims to the Devonshire Club, and there became one of a little literary circle that embraced Sir W. Robertson Nicoll, Clement Shorter, Max Pemberton, Sir George Sutton, Arnold White, and Frank Richardson, of “whiskers” fame, and G. H. Fosdike Nichols, who is “Quex” of the _Evening News_, and knows more about people and their doings than any other man in London. Years have gone, but we all survive as I write this, save poor Sims, Robertson Nicoll, and the erratic Frank Richardson.
I have been a member of a good many dining clubs: first the Old Vagabonds, then the New Vagabonds, and afterwards of the Argonauts; all three having as their leading lights that dual control of my old friends Douglas Sladen and G. B. Burgin; the one hirsute and the other bald, but who, when working together to run a dining-club, formed the most perfect combination in the world.
All three clubs have been many times described, therefore I need not remark much about them, except that at the meetings of the New Vagabonds at the Hotel Cecil one met everyone worth knowing and everyone who had “done something.” Alas! It is a thousand pities that the New Vagabonds no longer exists.
I recollect when I asked Lord Roberts to become its president he looked at me very gravely, and asked:
“What name did you say?”
“The New Vagabonds,” I replied. And I recited the roll of membership, which included many famous names associated with art, literature, and the drama.
“Well,” he said, “it’s title sounds uninviting, but I suppose I’ve been as much of a roving vagabond as most of you. Yes, if they want me to become its president I will.”
Mr. G. B. Burgin, in his excellent book, _Memoirs of a Clubman_, tells a story concerning myself at the first dinner of the New Vagabonds over which Lord Roberts presided.
He relates how, while I sat next to the president and was wearing miniatures of my decorations, a girl, indicating myself, asked him, “Who is that distinguished General with the wistful face next to Lord Roberts?”
Mr. Burgin also recalls an incident connected with the pronunciation of my somewhat unusual name--NOT _a nom-de-plume_, as so many have believed. He says:
“I was coming up to town one day when a girl and her mother got into the train. The girl carried a book under her arm. When they were comfortably settled the mother said: ‘Give me that book of Le Quek’s, dear,’ and the daughter replied: ‘Excuse me, mother, but I think you mean Le Kook’s.’ They appealed to me, and I said authoritatively that the proper pronunciation was ‘Le Kew’; another man in the corner broke in with ‘Le Kicks,’ and they were still kicking over it when I left the train.”
Mr. Burgin was, of course, correct. My name has, however, always been a stumbling-block, and more especially so, since Pinero wrote “The Gay Lord Quex.”
I am one of the earliest members of another club, which is known as “Our Society.” It was started by Arthur Lambton--to whom I believe I acted as literary godfather--Ingleby Oddie, now coroner for Westminster, H. B. Irving, Lord Albert Godolphin Osborne, and Herbert Crosse, its object being the study of criminology. Professor Churton Collins, Sir Melville Macnaghten, of Scotland Yard, George R. Sims, Eveleigh Nash, Sir A. Conan Doyle, Max Pemberton, Filson Young, Arthur Diòsy, J. B. Harris-Burland, P. W. Everett, Thomas Marlowe, editor of the _Daily Mail_, with Sir Sydney Russell Wells, Sir George Turner, and Sir H. Waterhouse as representatives of the medical profession, soon gathered round our board, and by the rules membership was strictly limited to forty.
Lord Northcliffe, when he joined, nicknamed us “The Forty Thieves.”
About three or four dinners are held annually, and at them the latest mystery of crime is earnestly discussed, though there is a rule that our deliberations are entirely secret, and no word of them ever divulged. We have somehow now earned the sobriquet of “The Crimes Club.” About a dozen guests are allowed, and nowadays our membership has been increased to sixty.
Among the regular attendants, in addition to those mentioned above, are the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Portarlington, Lord Sackville, Lord Kintore, Sir Eric Drummond, Admiral Sir E. Inglefield, General Sir A. Balfour, Sir Wilfred Atlay, Sir Godfrey Baring, Sir John Hall, Sir Henry Jerningham, and Colonel G. Cornwallis-West, while legal celebrities such as Sir E. Marshall-Hall, K.C., Sir H. Curtis Bennett, K.C., and Mr. Theobald Mathew are all to be seen around the table.
Arthur Lambton, to whose untiring efforts the club is due, and who acts as honorary secretary, takes the chair, and the procedure is, that a member reads a paper on some recent criminal case, and sometimes it is followed by a discussion in which counsel, who has acted for the prosecution or for the defence, takes part. The cases are analysed and the mentality of the guilty one dissected in a manner that is of intense interest to those who study the psychology of crime. My own small contributions have been the description of the crimes of Landru, and how I helped the Sûreté to investigate them, and also a small description of spies I have met. It certainly is the most exclusive and most interesting club in London, and its subscription is two half-crowns yearly!
There is, of course, a long waiting list, but no vacancy occurs, unless a member resigns or dies. An additional loss to that of Lord Northcliffe, one of our best-known and most popular members, who has recently died, is caused by the death of my old and valued friend Arthur Diòsy, traveller and lecturer, whose striking features, with the long-upturned moustachios, were so well known in London drawing-rooms.
He was my friend through thirty years, and in many ways a most remarkable figure in Bohemian London. Though born in London, he was the son of Martin Diòsy, a Hungarian refugee and patriot. After being educated in Germany, he learnt Japanese and became an advocate for an Anglo-Japanese alliance, founding the Japan Society and being its chairman. He knew Japan better than any other Englishman and--let me whisper it--lectured for years on that country before he had ever visited it!
I recollect though we were close friends, we had not seen each other for about six years, when I happened to arrive in Biskra, on the desert border in Algeria. The hotel was a third-rate one, the others all being full.
Passing along the corridor, I heard a voice. Diòsy’s was peculiar and once heard was always remembered, so I knew who was my fellow-guest.
“What ho! Arthur!” I cried.
“Who’s that?” asked Diòsy, with his strange, rolling tongue. Then he turned the corner, and, facing me, said:
“By the beard of the Prophet, behold the mystery-monger!”
I met Arthur Diòsy constantly all over Europe. When we sat together at the Crimes Club we used to exchange jokes about our travels. Lord Northcliffe, who was one of his great admirers, said one night at the club when we were all there together:
“Look, Quex! Look at the wily old Jap! Take good stock of him, for he’s wonderful. He can lecture on any mortal subject on earth at five minutes’ notice.” And so he could.
Poor Arthur Diòsy! He was a man after my own heart, and I hesitate to let my pen run further across this page.
It was only just before last Christmas that, having eaten kippers together, at one o’clock in the morning, in the Ham-Bone Club--London’s only really Bohemian Club, of which I am about to tell you--I strolled with him as far as Jermyn Street, and we stood outside the house where he had rooms.
“Well, my dear Le Queux,” he said, “_au revoir_ to you. You are going ski-ing in Switzerland, and I go to the Riviera. We shall both be back in town in March and we will then pick another pair of those succulent kippers, which are such a speciality of the Ham-Bone--eh?”
We grasped hands and parted, while I walked along to the Devonshire in the moonlight.
He went out to Cannes, and, alas! died there a few weeks later.
And as I write this, his cheery caricature drawn by Sava Botzaritch still laughs out to me from its silver frame.
I referred to Arthur Lambton as the energetic organizer and secretary of the Crimes Club. He tells a good story about a murder. It will be recollected that Devereux murdered his wife, put her body in a trunk, and then poured glue all over her. When the trunk was opened she was taken out stiff and viscous like a fish.
Being at breakfast with his father, the late General Arthur Lambton, my friend asked: “Anything in the paper this morning?” “No,” replied the General, “except that I see a gentleman named Devereux has put his wife in aspic!”
I have mentioned the Ham-Bone Club.
It is but vaguely known to Society, and then only through the Press publishing an occasional paragraph concerning it. Few even of artistic and literary London are aware of its existence.
As befits the only real Bohemian set still left in London, it keeps almost exclusively to itself. And yet it is surprising how many interesting and notable men--whose names are household words--gather together in stables and hay-lofts that have been transformed into the club premises. There artists, sculptors, editors, and other men of note go to enjoy themselves, to eat a cheap dinner, to laugh, to dance, to sup off kippers, and to find delight in innocent but exciting “ragging.”
The walls of its big, narrow room, are covered with framed caricatures of the better-known members. There is a bar at one end with a big barrel on the counter, and little tables set around, together with a piano that is played by a young Armenian pianist and composer of great promise, whom everyone calls “Marcantonio.”
The place is crowded with members dancing with artists’ models, mannequins from West End dressmakers, and other pretty girls who were only allowed to join the club after the committee had made most searching inquiries and had proved that they were all regularly employed in some profession or another.
The Ham-Bone is the gayest yet most wholesomely minded of all the London night clubs.
You may go to the Embassy, where it is expensive, the Forty-Something, Rector’s, and a dozen other night dance clubs, but the Ham-Bone reigns supreme for fun, frolic, and a real good time. The Bohemians of London run it.
* * * * *
I have attended other eccentric London clubs. There was the now-long defunct Thirteen Club, established to counteract the superstition attached to that supposed unlucky number. I knew the “Magic Circle” or professional conjurers’ club, and am still a member of the Tatlers. Recently I was guest with Lord Birkenhead and Arthur Lambton at a new club formed by Oxford undergraduates, on similar lines to our Crimes Club. Their name is “The Thugs.”
I had a long discussion with the ex-Lord Chancellor, as to whether the right pronunciation was Tugs, Thougs, or Thugs. He pronounced that it should be “Tugs,” so “Tugs” it is.
That night, indeed, he was made a Tug, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.
The club is one that we shall hear more of in the near future.
Another club of which I was once a member, may claim to be one of the most exclusive clubs in the world--the Florence Club in Florence.
The members, which consist for the most part of the proud but penurious Tuscan aristocracy, actually black-balled a British Prince! After that, Major Percy Chapman, British Consul-General in Florence, Montgomery Carmichael, British Consul to Leghorn, and all the English members resigned, _en bloc_, including myself. For some years, too, I was a member of the Travellers’ Club in Paris, and later of the Turf Club in Cairo and the International Sporting Club at Monte Carlo.
But of all clubs, I prefer the Devonshire, with its old-fashioned comfort, and its fine traditions.
A good medical story was told me recently by my friend, Dr. Cyril Horsford, the well-known laryngologist and aurist, of Harley Street. While acting as specialist at the hospital at Genoa during the war, he found that to many of those rendered dumb by shell-shock, speech could be induced by touching the patients’ throat in a certain way and suddenly asking him a question. Late one evening a man was brought in and put to bed. He was unable to utter a word, so Horsford asked him if he would like to speak again. The man smiled incredulously, whereupon Horsford told him that he would restore his speech at twelve o’clock to-morrow. The patient, however, wrote down that he would bet him all he possessed that he would not.
In the morning the specialist had many patients to see and at last the man in question was shown in. Horsford recognized him and acted as he had done in other cases, whereupon the man at once spoke.
“Ah! you see!” said the doctor, “I’ve won my bet!”
“Excuse me, sir, you ’aven’t,” replied the man. “You said twelve o’clock, it’s ten minutes parst!”
The most disreputable-looking person who ever entered the portals of the Devonshire Club was old Lord Clanricarde. I often chatted with him. He was shabby and parsimonious to the extreme. He had a mania for collecting paper-bags. He used very often to stay at the Victoria Hotel at St. Leonards, and I frequently met him out on the Promenade doing his shopping. This consisted of buying a couple of bananas, or an apple, or perhaps a bun, which he would eat in a shelter and then carefully preserve the bag until he had a pile upon his dressing-table, when his man upon his departure would carefully tie them up and take them away. He left, as is well known, his great fortune to the Lascelles family.
Even London police-court magistrates may be “taken in.” An acquaintance of mine, a well-known metropolitan stipendiary, met a few weeks ago an actor in another club of which I am a member.
They became friendly, and eventually the magistrate lent him £100 on the “wife-and-starving-family” appeal. The actor did not pay, the magistrate could not afford to risk publicity by putting him to the county court, so he rather foolishly wrote to the committee of the club asking them to remove the name of the delinquent from the list! The actor is now a hundred pounds the richer, and his worship will, I fear, have to whistle for his money!
There are several variations of the following Devonshire club story, but I give the true one, for which Eveleigh Nash vouches.
My friend, Frank Richardson, as everyone knows, held whiskers in deadly horror. One day Max Beerbohm had arranged with Frank to lunch with him at the club. Max arrived at a few minutes before one o’clock and went into the smoking-room, where sat Thomas Barratt, head of the Pears’ Soap firm, one of the best of men, who possessed a colossal white, spade-shaped beard that swept half way to his waist. Beerbohm did not know who Barratt was, but he saw at a glance his patriarchal beard, so he went out into the hall, and pretended to be thoroughly overwhelmed. At that moment Richardson entered and dashed up to him.
“What’s the matter, Max?” he asked anxiously.
“Hold my hand, hold my hand,” replied Beerbohm with simulated breathlessness. “_I’ve just seen Gawd!_”
In another of Frank Richardson’s jokes I myself participated. He had just written his book on whiskers and was having a deadly feud with “Tatcho Sims” as he called him. A few days before Christmas when I entered the club, the porter handed me a large square parcel. I cut the string to find what appeared to be a handsome jewel-box, which, on opening, I found to contain three bottles of a much advertised tooth-wash, lying on a bed of apricot velvet.
Inside was a letter from the enterprising firm asking me to accept the little present, and if I obtained any benefit from their preparation would I kindly send them a line or two, which they might use when advertising. It was not an unusual request. I have had many such.
“Hulloa! William!” I heard Richardson exclaim behind me, “then you’ve got a box too. I had mine a week ago.”
“Oh!” I said. “What did you write to the people?”
He took from his wallet a copy of his letter, the firm’s reply, and his reply. Richardson wrote:
“Sirs,--I am very grateful to you for sending me your wonderful preparation. I have used it on my hair with marked effect. It is turning my hair quite grey.--Yours very truly, Frank Richardson.”
To this the firm replied regretting that Mr. Richardson had not read the directions, and that the preparation was intended for the teeth, and not the hair.
Frank’s reply was:
“Sirs,--I have your letter, and I have thoroughly tested your preparation. I am glad to tell you that I have found it equally efficacious in dysentery and backache, in bleaching the hair, and in putting a shine on my brown boots.--Yours truly, Frank Richardson.”
Mr. Lewis Edmunds, K.C., who interests himself very much in the Devonshire Club, tells me some quaint stories of the Bar.
One he told at the fireside in the smoking-room the other day was distinctly humorous.
“Once I was junior with Sir Frank Lockwood in a divorce case heard in camera before Mr. Justice Butt--oh! a dreadful case!” he said. “Well, you know that the legal maxim is that a client must come into court with clean hands. During the course of the case, Lockwood, who was a marvellous caricaturist, drew a picture of our client with his hands dripping with ink! When the case was over the parties went away in two cabs which raced down the Strand and collided. Thereupon the parties got out and came to fisticuffs, the end being that they came up at Marlborough Street on cross-summonses for assault.”
Rupert Grayson, who is a director of Eveleigh Nash’s publishing company, told me at the Guards’ Club, where I was dining with him one night, a very interesting story of Monte Carlo.
Many stories of luck and fortune at Monte Carlo have been told, but this one that Grayson tells is even better, in my opinion, than most.
An Englishman punting at roulette placed five francs _en plein_ on number seventeen. The number turned up. He understood very little French, and when the croupier inquired whether he wished to leave his winnings on the number, he called across the table “Two, two,” meaning leave two and return the rest. The croupier, misunderstanding him, imagined it “_Tout, tout_,” and began piling up the entire winnings on seventeen. When the Englishman saw that he was replacing more than two plaques he shouted excitedly, “Two--enough, enough.” The croupier, thinking he said “_Tout--neuf, neuf_,” transferred the whole of his winnings to number nine. “_Neuf, rouge, impair, et manque!_” cried the croupier a moment later. The Englishman had won over 6,000 francs with his original five francs in two coups.
Talking of Monte Carlo, Louis Drexel, Rupert Grayson’s brother-in-law, tells a good story of his father, “Tony” Drexel, who was staying at the Hôtel de Paris. At three o’clock every morning his father was awakened by a man in the room above throwing his boots violently on to the floor. This practice became so unbearable that at last complaints were addressed to Fleury, who was then manager at the Paris. The Frenchman apologized. M. Fleury could rest assured it would not happen again. Next morning, punctually at three o’clock, the Frenchman returned to his room. Unthinkingly following his usual custom, he hurled his right boot to the floor before he remembered, with horror, his promise. In the room below, “Tony” Drexel, awakened as usual, lay waiting for the second boot. Long, dreary hours passed, till a message reached the Frenchman: “As Mr. Drexel would like to get to sleep, would the gentleman have the goodness to throw down the second boot as soon as possible.”
The late Sir George Lewis, the famous solicitor, once declared to me in the Devonshire:
“The Divorce Court is the biggest blackmailing court in all Europe. In half the cases there is blackmailing, and a general square-up all round before the parties go into court. The public never see divorce proceedings in their true light. The lawyers know, but the public is unaware.”
Next day he used the same words in giving evidence before the Divorce Commission.
This view is borne out by my friend Lord Birkenhead, who quite recently declared to me that he had long reached the conclusion that our divorce laws are almost the worst in the civilized world.
In discussing the question with the Divorce Law Reform Union, of which the brilliant ex-Lord Chancellor is president, he told them that:
“There is no chicanery and no trickery to which judges in the Divorce Court have not been compelled to resort. This does not apply to the judges in any other court of law. There is no room in this country for a clergy established by law who deny the right of marriage to people, freed by law, in a Church established by law,” he asserted.
Another fellow-clubman at the Devonshire is a tall, cheery, athletic golf-player, well known in business circles in London. Mr. A. Noel Mobbs, brother of the famous Colonel E. R. Mobbs, D.S.O., who was ten years ago popular as wing-three-quarter in the English Rugby Football Team. When Colonel Mobbs died, a subscription fund for a memorial reached £2,600, and a bust was a year ago put up to his memory in the Market Square in Northampton, the balance being given to various charitable institutes in which he was interested.
“My chief claim to fame is being Edgar’s brother,” Noel Mobbs is fond of saying. But Noel Mobbs has another distinction, that of finance, for after the war he and a few friends gave the British Government seven and a half million pounds sterling for the “dump” at Slough. In addition, he is chairman of half-a-dozen other big companies, to which he attends, with his merry laughter, in his intervals between golf and bridge.
I was with him ski-ing in Mürren last year, and I witnessed one of the funniest sights I ever saw on the snow. Mobbs, tall, thin, and athletic, in proper ski garb, had picked up the art of ski-ing in a marvellous manner, and started to run down the Allmendhubel slope, which is very steep, as any ski-runner knows. As he approached the raised snow-bank at the bottom, he saw a pretty young lady in sweater and cap seated on the bank admiring the view across to the Jungfrau. He made an attempt to “telemark,” and thus stop dead, but he bungled it at about twenty-five miles an hour, crossed his skis, rammed them home in the snow, and landed plump in the astonished girl’s lap!
There he remained in an undignified position, and with many apologies, for a full ten minutes before he could be extricated, his skis being so deeply imbedded!
Many stories are told in clubs and elsewhere of men who, by surreptitious means, obtain a larger share of spirits than others not so cute.
Colonel F. J. Agabeg, of the Chota Nagpore Regiment, who was so well known in India before he retired and came to live in Bedfordshire, told me in Mürren last winter a very good example of this.
A brother officer of his one day after polo was seated on Agabeg’s verandah, about to take a peg. The native servant was pouring out the whiskey into a big, thirst-quenching glass, and asked,
“How much, sahib?”
“Oh! just cover the ice,” was the careless reply.
The Indian servant poured on, being unaware that ice floats.
In telling these stories I hope I have not taken the reader too frequently under the spreading chestnut tree; but if I have recounted an anecdote he knows, well I ask him to forgive me, particularly if I have told it in an inferior way.
Perhaps I may print some further reminiscences one day. But for the present these must suffice.
THE END.
INDEX
Abö University, 190
Abruzzi, Duke of the, 18
Adams, Davenport (dramatic critic), 163, 188
Adams, Doctor (of Essex), 225–229
Adcock, St. John, 93
Adelphi Terrace, 288
Adler, Dr. (Chief Rabbi), 189
Admiralty, the, 237, 259
Adrianople, 116
Aerodrome, Croydon, 103
Afzelius, Professor, 190
Agabeg, Colonel F. J. (of the Chota Nagpore Regiment), 306
Ahmed, Prince (brother of the Crown Prince of Johore), 119
Albacete, Léon (the most daring and expert jewel thief in Europe), 213
Albania, 10, 32, 44; the unchanging, 56; brigands of, 45; laws of hospitality, 60; mountains of, 116
Albion, 64
Aldershot, 160
Alexandra, Her Majesty Queen, 30
Alexandrovsk, 269
Algeria, 10
Alhambra Theatre, 101, 292
America, 18, 189
Amers, Captain (musical conductor), 202
Andrade. _See_ Albacete, Léon, 212
Angier, Sir Theodore V. S., 248
Anglia, East, 245
Anthony, Doctor, 230
Argentina, Jews in, 27
Argonauts Club, 294
Argyll, His Grace the late Duke of, 201, 248
Argyll Hotel, 201
Armenia, 113
Armstrong, Herbert Rowse, (poisoner) 234
Armstrong, Sir George (Proprietor of the Globe), 164, 176
Aruwimi, 100, 168. _See_ Harding, George
Ashburton, 149
Askew, Charles (the American millionaire), 223; an ornithologist, 224; his gift of rare Greek gem to Le Queux, 225
Asquith, H. H. (Home Secretary), 191
Astrakhan, Arcadia Garden, 97
Aswân, 148
Atlay, Sir Wilfred, 296
Austin, Stanley (of the _Daily Mirror_), 278
Australia, 248
Austria, Francis Joseph, Emperor of, 35
Austria, Karl Franz Joseph, Emperor of, 35; succeeded to the throne during the war, 39; a boon companion of the German Ex-Crown Prince in many disgraceful escapades, 39
Austria, Maria Josephs, Archduchess of, 39
Austria, Otto, Archduke of, 39
Avory, Mr. Justice, 180
Baccelli, Enrico, 126
Baccelli, Signora, 125
Bachelors’ Club, 133
Baden, 35
Baily, Mr. F. E. (Editor _Royal Magazine_), 278
Balfour, Lord, 90, 170
Balfour, General Sir A., 296
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 16
Balkans, 34, 222
Balliol, 119
Baring, Sir Godfrey, 296
Barmouth, North Wales, 183
Barratt, Thomas J., 301
Barrington, Rutland, 290
Barry, M.P., Sir Francis Tress, 248
Bath Club, 202
Battenberg, Prince Louis of, 236, 242
Bazaine, Marshal (traitor, surrendered Metz to Germans in 1870), 210
Beaconsfield, Lord, 132
Beefsteak Club, 183
Beerbohm, Max, 301, 302
Beggars’ Club, 286
Belgium, Albert, King of, 103
Belgium, Elizabeth, Queen of, 103
Belgium, Leopold, King of, 100; audience with King Albert, 104; presented to King Leopold by H. M. Stanley, 100
Belgrade, 67
_Belgravia_, the, 188
Bell, Mr. Graham (inventor of telephones), 16
Bengesco, Madame Zoe, 92
Bennett, Sir H. Curtis, 296
Benzie, Mr. G. W. G. (of Peterculter, Aberdeen), 159
Beresford, Lord Charles, 90, 236, 251, 260
Berlin, 115, 242
Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 205, 219
Besant, Walter, 94
Beutner, Dr. (Steinhauer the spy and the Kaiser’s bosom friend), 269
Bexhill, 274
“Biffy.” _See_ Ismail, Crown Prince, 118
Binns (American wireless hero), 161
Birkenhead, Lord, 170, 273, 299, 304
Black Mountains, Land of the, 33
Bleriot (aviator), 151
Blood-feud. _See_ Marashut, Mrika Kol, 59
Blücher, Field-Marshal von, 242
Blyth, Lord, 275
B----, Monsieur, Baron de Hirsch’s confidential Secretary, 26; his admiration of the great financier’s generous treatment of himself and others, 27; beautiful house at Enghien, 27
Bodkin, Sir Archibald, 180
Bolshevism, 16
Bond Street, 104, 140
Boodles Club, 246
Bosphorus, 113
Bottomley, Horatio, 164, 267
Bouchier, Mr. James (of _The Times_), 88
Boul’ Mich’, 220, 286
Boyd, Rev. Halbert (author of _Men and Marvels_), 280
Boyle, D.S.O., Colonel Joseph Wentworth, (“The King of the Klondike”), 282, 283
Brabazon, General Sir John, 275
Brandenbourg, Georges (of the _Figaro_), 287
Brassey, Lord, 248, 249
Bray, Mr. Justice, 170
Brazil, Dom Pedro of, 35
Brex, Twells, his pathetic story of a spider, 100; death, 100
Bridge House Hotel, Staines, 181
Brieux, Eugène (dramatic author), 221
Brigands, the Skreli, 44
Brighton, 54, 198
Brighton Pier, 202
_Britain’s Deadly Peril_, 262
Broström, a Swede, 189
Brown, Mr. E. P. (land telephone expert), 157
Brown’s Hotel, 67
Brudenell-Bruce, young, 132
Brussels, 152
Brussi, Enrico, 23, 24
Buchanan, Sir George (British Minister to Bulgaria), 84
Buchanan, Lady Georgina (wife of Sir George), 84
Bucharest, 84, 96
Buckingham Palace, 236
Budapest, 96
Buenos Ayres, 123
Bulgaria, 37; intrigues of, 34
Bulgaria, Ferdinand King of, 13, 85; at heart an Anglophile, 89; estranged from England by blunders made at Whitehall, 89, 116
“Bundle” (Countess of Cardigan’s dog), 135
Burbridge of Harrod’s, 155
Burbury, Mr. H. H. T. (of Wakefield), 159
Burgin, Mr. G. B., 294, 295
Burleigh, Bennett, 183
Burnham, Mr. W. W. (of Blackheath), 159
Butcher, Sir George, 90
Butt, Mr. Justice, 303
Buxton, lecture at, 257
“Bwab.” _See_ Brabazon, General Sir John
Café Vachette, 286
Cairo, 148
Calabria, 216; earthquake, 20
Calea Victoriei, 98
California, 149
Campbell-Bannerman Government, 246
Campbell-Bannerman, Sir. H., 246
Canada, 248
Cann, Dr. (the eccentric physician), 277
Cannes, 26, 298
Cantacuzen, George, 98
Capsa’s Restaurant, 97
Carava, Signor M., 215
Cardigan, Countess of (widow of Lord Cardigan of Balaclava fame), 131; her appearance, 132; her “risky” stories, 132; Eveleigh Nash regrets publication of them, 134
Carisbrooke, Marquis of, 122
Carisbrooke, Marchioness of, 122
Carlton Hotel, 151
“Carmen Sylva,” Queen of Roumania, 84; her private life, 92; interest in British novelists, 93; intended to construct model village at Bucharest, 95
Carmichael, Mr. Montgomery (British Consul and author of _In Tuscany_), 37
Carnarvon, Lord, 147, 149, 150
Carrier pigeons, 256
Casino, at Corfu, 147
Caspar, William (an American), 91, 97, 98; brought aviation to England, 151; a dead shot, 156; characteristics, 153; dress, 154; fond of practical joking, 155; an hustler, 152; did things on a lavish scale, 153
Cattaro, 31, 44
Cecil Hotel, 151, 189
Cettigné, capital of Montenegro, 31; the people by law are compelled to wear the national dress, 31; the women forbidden to wear European hats, 31; every man armed, 32; King Nicholas fines a man in the street for being unarmed, and pockets the money, 65
Chapple, Dr. W. A. (Liberal M.P. for Stirlingshire), 276
Châteauroux, 10
Chatsworth, 170
Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, 139
Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, 252
Cimiez, 30
Clanricarde, Lord, 300; his appearance, 300; his frugality, 301; his great fortune, 301
Clarendon, Lord, 90, 261
Claridge’s Hotel, 28, 97, 122
Clémentine, Princess of Cobourg, 36; appearance of, 36; ungracious manners, 37
Clichy, Boulevard de, 287
Clifford’s Inn, 201
CLUBS: Argonauts, 294 Bachelors, 133 Bath, 202 Beefsteak, 183 Beggars, 286 British Ski Association, 11 Crichton, 290 Crimes, 197 Devonshire, 11 Diplomats (Bulgaria), 86 Florence (Florence), 30 Garrick, 183 Guards, 303 Ham-Bone, 297 International Sporting at Monte Carlo, 300 Jockey, 183 Junior-Garrick, 288 Lyric, 291 Magic Circle, 299 Military (Belgrade), 84 Monte Carlo, 300 Motor, 291 Mürren Ski, 11 New Vagabonds, 294 Old Vagabonds, 294 Our Society, 295 Prince of Wales’s, 291 Reform, 246 Savage, 246 St. James, 97 Swiss Alpine, 11 Tatlers, 11 Travellers (Paris), 96 Turf (London), 183 Turf (Cairo), 300
Cody (the pioneer of aviation), 151, 155
Colchester, oyster feast at, 273
Collen, Major-General Sir Edwin, 248
Collins, Professor Churton, 295
Collins, Wilkie, 94
Colwyn Bay, 185
Colwyn, Lord, 268
Constance, Lady de la Warr, 274
Constant, Baron de, 221
Constantinople, 47, 105, 116
Cooper, Sir William (of Castle Carey, Guernsey), dedication, 5
Cooper, Lady Earnshaw, dedication to, 5
Cooper, Miss Gladys, 122
Cornwall, Sir Edwin, 170
Cornwallis-West, Colonel G., 296
Cotroceni, Countess, 99
Courtney, Mr. W. L., 201
Coventry Street, 293
Cowdray, Lord, 275
Cowes, 140
Craig, Mr. J. A. (editor _Great Thoughts_), 280
Crampton, Mr. W. J. (of Weybridge), 159
Crawford, Earl of, 261
Crawfords, the mythical. _See_ Richmond, Mr. Barry, and the Humbert Case.
Crawley, Colonel C. G. Chetwode (of the General Post Office), 160
Crichton Club, 290
Crimes Club, 197, 233
Crippen, Dr., _See_ Adams, Doctor, 225
Cromer, 121
Crookhaven Wireless Station, 161
Cross, Mr. J. H., 139
Crosse, Mr. Herbert, 295
Croydon aerodrome, 103
Curzon Street, 125
Czrnagora (Black Mountain), 33
_Daily Chronicle_, 245, 279
_Daily Mail_, 10, 192, 245, 249
_Daily Sketch_, 189, 221
_Daily Telegraph_, 192, 245
Dartmoor, 148
Daudet, Ernest, 287, 221
Daurignac, Thérèse (one of the greatest adventuresses in French history), 206
Dead, Book of the, 147
Deanery Street, Park Lane, 131
Deauville, 99
Deene Park, Northamptonshire, 131
Delagrange (aviator), 153
Delloye (Paris bank clerk). _See_ Rebecque, Count de, 219
Deltour, Gaston (artist), 219
Deputies, Chamber of, at Rome, 21
Derby, the Earl of, 248, 170
Deschanel, Paul (President of French Republic), 205, 219, 220, 286
Des Graz, Charles, Mr., now Sir, 32
Devereux (murderer), 298
Devonshire, 82
Devonshire Club, 118, 225, 246, 275, 300, 304, 305
Dimsdale, M.P., Sir Joseph, 248
Diòsy, Arthur, 296; born in London; son of Martin Diòsy, Hungarian refugee and patriot, 296; studied Japanese, 296; his great knowledge of Japan, 297; founded the Japan Society, 297; admired by and friend of Lord Northcliffe, 297; died at Cannes, 298
Diòsy, Martin, 296
Diplomats’ Club, Bulgaria, 86
Divorce and its laws, 304
Dixon-Hartland (the banker), 181
Djakova, 48
Dobrovitch, Monsieur, 87
Dobson, Austin, his poems, 93
Downing Street, 246
Doyle, Sir A. Conan, 93, 295; communicating with spirits, 100
Draga, Queen, 67, 69
Dresden, 38, 140; royal palace at, 13
Drexel, Louis (Rupert Grayson’s brother-in-law), story of his father, “Tony” Drexel, 304
Drexel, “Tony,” 304
Drummond, Sir Eric, 296
Duchess d’Ussac, 213
Dufferin, Lord, 108
Duff-Gordon, Lady, 199
Duke, Sir Henry (formerly journalist of _Daily Telegraph_), 170, 180
Dulcigno, mountain of, 65
Du Maurier (artist and author of _Trilby_), 287
Duncan, Mr. G. B. (editor), 237
Eckstein, Mrs., 261
Edgington, Miss May (novelist), 278
Edmunds, K.C., Mr. Lewis, 275, 303
Edward VII., King of England, 22, 25; his exquisite courtliness, 29; dislike of King “Cléo-pold,” 100; when Prince of Wales resigned from an exclusive Paris club because King Leopold had been elected a member, 101, 128, 139, 290
Edwardes, Sir Stanley, 248
Egypt, 147
Elias, Mr., 193
Eliot, George (the novelist), 139
Elmwood, near Broadstairs, 250
Elstree, 198
Empire Theatre, 101
Enver Pasha, his supreme contempt of Britain, 116; a puppet of the Kaiser, 116
Ernberg, Baroness, 190
Evans, Sir Laming Worthington, 273
_Evening News_, 125
Everett, Percy W. (of _Pearson’s_), 197, 295
Everett & Son (publishers), 193
Exeter, Marquis of, 195
Ezekiel, Book of, 190
Fane, “Cis,” 132
Fascisti, Italian (“The Black Shirts”), 21
Fawside House, Covent Garden, 243
Fell, Dr., a case of “I do not like you,” 202
ffoulkes, Mrs. Maude Chester (authoress), 134, 137, 201, 202
Field, Colonel Cyril (military expert), 245
Fife, the Duke of, 248
Finck, Herman (composer), 202
Flannery, M.P., Sir Fortesque, 248
Fleet Street, 183
Fleury, M. (manager Hôtel de Paris), 304
Florence, 36, 127, 188
Florence Club in Florence, 300; one of the most exclusive in the world; its members, British Prince black-balled, 300; resignation of English members, _en bloc_, 300
Flower, Mr. Newman, 188
Foch, 221
Forbes, Lady Angela, 132
Foreign Office, 259
France, 10
Fraser, Sir John Foster, 273
Fraser, Superintendent (of Scotland Yard), 29
Függer, Countess, 36
Fyvie, Leith, Lord of, 90, 261, 264
Gaiety Theatre, Hastings, 281
Gale, Norman, 188
Gallop, Constantine, 119
Galway, Lord, 261
Gare, Avenue de la, 29
Garrick Club, 183
“_Gawd_,” 302
Genoa, 163
George V., King of England, 22
George, Mr. Lloyd, 170, 251, 268, 273
German Ambassador, 252
German machinations, 89; war intended by Kaiser, 90, 113, 237; his scheming, 116
German Military Attaché, 252
German Naval Attaché, 252
German officers openly survey Kentish hills, and deliberate on sites for guns, 253; the party returning to London were entertained by German Ambassador at Carlton House Terrace, 254; motor signs on roads from Kentish coast to London were marked by black and white stripes of German official direction posts, 254
German secret agents in London, 243
German Secret Service, their cunning modes of bribery, 253
Germany, 10, 15
Gibbs, Sir Philip (of the _Daily Chronicle_), 82
Gilardoni, Count, 18
Gill, Charles, practical jokes of, 181
Gilli’s in the Via Tornabuoni, Florence, 127
Gilliot, Jules, 213
Giron, M., 143
Gladstone, W. E., 65; his kindness, 168
Glasgow, 123
Glenny, Charlie, 288
_Globe_, The, 10, 163; merged into _Pall Mall Gazette_, 177
Government, Campbell-Bannerman’s, 246
Grand Hotel at Belgrade, 69
Grand Hotel, Bulgaria, 85
Grand Hotel, Cettigné, 32
Graves, C. L., 163
Grayson, Rupert (director of Eveleigh Nash’s publishing Co.), 303; his stories of luck and fortune at Monte Carlo, 303, 304
Greeley, Horace (of New York), 200
Grey, Sir Edward, 16
Grierson, Mr. W. (of Newnes), 195
Griffith, George (author), 187, 197
Griffith-Jones, Rev. Principal, 280
Grossmith, George, Senior, 288
Grosvenor Square, 125, 127
Guards’ Club, 303
Guilbert, Madame, 209
Guildford, 10, 118, 157, 159
Gun-factory, Düsseldorf, 251
Guy’s Hospital, 168
Haggard, Sir Rider, 93, 281
Hahki Pasha, 111
Haldane, Lord, 236
Hall, Sir John, 296
Halsbury, Lord, 170
Ham-Bone Club, 297; (London’s only really Bohemian Club and run by Bohemians), 298
Hame, “That damned fellow,” 138
Hamilton, Lord Frederic, 138
Hands, Charles (of the _Daily Mail_), 82, 165, 173
Hansard Union, 173
Hapsburgs, the fatal, 34, 35, 37, 140
Harding, George (a stoker, the unknown and actual discoverer of the Aruwimi, the Forests of Perpetual Night, and the Pigmies), 166
Hardinge, Viscount, 248
Harris-Burland, J. B., 295
Harris, Mr. (of Odhams), 193
Hassall, John (artist), 199; differentiates the tonic colours of port wine and Bass, 200
Hatchard’s (booksellers), 93
Hawarden, 170
Haynes, Mr. J. H. (well-known telegraphic engineer), 119
Headley, Lord, 90, 261; his humour and ventriloquism, 264–267
Heddle, Mr. James, 189
Helicopter, details of our new instrument were known in Berlin two days after its secret trials, 256
Henderson, Mr., 23
Henley, W. E., 188
Hennell, Colonel Sir Reginald, 248
Henniker-Heaton, 215
Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, 144
Herbert, Mrs. of Llanover (mother of Lord Treowen), 275
Herodotus, 147
Herzegovina, 222
Hicks, Sir W. Joynson, 261
Hidden Hand of Germany, 257, 259
Higgs, Mr. T. W., at Bristol, 159
Hirsch, the late Baron de, 26; his intimate friendship with King Edward, 26; visits to Monte Carlo, 26; his death, 27; left by will one million sterling for poor Jews in Argentina, 27, 101; his high esteem of Prince of Wales, 28
Hirsch, Baroness de, 27; her kindness to King Edward (when Prince of Wales), 27; her wish that when His Royal Highness succeeded to the throne of Great Britain he would always be kind to the Jews, 28; her death, 29
Hobbs, Captain E. J. (of Wareham), 159
Hodder-Williams, Sir Ernest, 189
Hoedl, spy of Austria, 82
Hofburg, 42
Hohenzollern, House of, 240
Holland, M.P., Sir William, 248
Home Office, 259
Horne, Sir Robert (ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer), 276
Horsford, Dr. Cyril (laryngologist and aurist), 300
Hôtel Chatham, Paris, 221, 292
Hôtel de l’Europe (Petrograd), 14
Hôtel des Indes, Hague, 238
Hôtel des Palmiers, 215
Hotel Excelsior at Cimiez, 26
Hotel Narenta, Herzegovina, 222
Hotel Normandy, 100
Hoti tribe, 60
Hounslow, 178
Hulton, Sir Edward, 189
Humbert case. _See_ Richmond, Mr. Barry, 206
Humbert, Madame, 205
Huntley and Palmer, 127
Hutchinson, Sir George, 188
Hutchinson, A. S. M. (author), 198
Ileana, Princess, 98
Ilfracombe, 140
Imperial Institute, 150
Imperiale, Marquis, 125
Inchkeith, on the Firth of Forth, 159
India office, 259
Inglefield, Admiral Sir E., 296
International Sporting Club at Monte Carlo, 300
_Invasion, The_, forecast in the _Daily Mail_ of what would happen if a great war came and we were invaded, 243–247; large sum paid for the German rights, 250; the conclusion entirely re-written, making the result a German success, 250; worse! published and given as a prize for German school-boys, 250
_Invasion, The_, published in book form by Eveleigh Nash, with introduction by Earl Roberts, 249; translated into twenty-seven languages, 249
Ipek, 51
Ireland, 248
Irving, Sir Henry, 163
Irving, H. B., 288, 295
Isleworth, 289
Ismail, Crown Prince, 118
Italy, 10; His Majesty King Victor Emanuel of 17, 18
Ivan (a maître d’hôtel), 222
“Jack the Ripper,” 165, 270
Jaime, Don (Pretender to the Spanish throne), 135
Jeans, William (of the _Globe_), 177
Jermyn Street, 297
Jerningham, Sir Henry, 296
Jewell, Mr. “Jack” (Larry Lynx), 175
Jews, 25, 27
Jezebel, 137
Jockey Club, 183
Joe (gamekeeper to King Edward), amusing anecdote of, 139
_John Bull_, 267
Johore, Sultan of, 118; Ismail, Crown Prince, 120; Prince Ahmed, 120
Joynson-Hicks, Sir W., 90
Jugo-Slavia, country of, 83
Ju-jitsu, 198
Junior Garrick Club, 288
Jurgens, Henri (impresario), 292, 293
Jutland, Battle of, forecasted, 251
Kaltner, dentist, 38
Karageorgevitch, Prince Peter. _See_ Serbia, King Peter of, 67
Kastrati, the (brigands), 57
Keary, Peter (of _Pearson’s_), 196
Kensington Palace, 201
Kent, Duke of, letters of, 25
Kernahan, Coulson, 94, 127, 188, 279
Kew, 25
Khartoum, 225
King Street, Covent Garden, 133
Kingscote, Sir Nigel, 132
Kingscote, Lady, 132
Kintore, Lord, 296
_Kladderadatsch_, the editor of (_Punch_, of Berlin), 180; sent to prison for six months for copying a _Globe_ article, 180
Klementi country, 60
Knight, Joe (editor of the _Athenæum_), 163
Knighton (butler to Countess of Cardigan), 132, 136, 138
Kol (a typical bandit) 60
Kola Peninsular, 100
Kubelik (Hungarian violinist), 128
Kustendil, rose-fields of, 87
Labouchere, Mr., 19
La Duse (actress), 219
Lambourne, Lord. _See_ Lockwood, Colonel
Lambton, the late General Arthur, 298
Lambton, Mr. Arthur, 295, 296; good story about a murder, 298
Landru, Henri Désiré (the French Bluebeard), 229–233, 296
La Rocca, 23
Lawson, Sir Charles, 248
Lay, George (theatrical solicitor), 288; at Brentford, 181
League of Nations Union, 281
Lebaudy, Monsieur, 205
Le Blanc, Maurice, 94
Le Blon (aviator), 153
Lees, Mr. William, 189
Lefranc (Belgian journalist), 102; his horrible disclosures of the slave traffic, 102
Legation, British, at Montenegro, 32
Leghorn, 125
Legouis, Emile (Professor of English at the Sorbonne), 221
Leigh, Lord, 122
Le Neve. _See_ Adams, Doctor
Leno, Dan, 288
_Le Petit Journal_, 162
Le Queux, Mr. Fred, 145, 146
Le Queux, William Tufnell, _see_ in _Who’s Who_, 10, 11, 17; sub-editor of the _Globe_, 163; writes for Newnes, 194; W. E. Gladstone reads his novels and recommends them to Queen Alexandra when Princess of Wales, 170; his friendship with Monsieur B----, Baron Hirsch’s confidential secretary, 26; audience with King of Italy, 19; invested with the Crown of Italy, 21; went to Belgrade on confidential mission from British Government, 80; evenings spent with _Carmen Sylva_, 92; private audience with King Nicholas of Montenegro, 32; the King’s appearance, mode of dressing his palace, 33; the audience-chamber with its paintings of the Italian _cinque cento_ period, 33; requests permission of King Nicholas to visit the Skreli brigands, is given a letter of introduction to Vatt Marashi, the chief of the Skreli, requesting safe conduct, 45; return to Cettigné from the Skreli country, and in audience with King Nicholas relates experiences with Vatt Marashi and the banditti, 63; is invested with the order of Danilo of Montenegro, 63; guest of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 85; friend of King Peter of Serbia, 67; audience with “Abdul the Damned,” of Turkey, 105; acted as judge at the first British aviation meeting, held on Doncaster racecourse, 151; the first person to broadcast speech and music to amateurs and experimenters, 157
Le Queux, “Sir” William (of Colchester), 274
Leverhulme, Lord, 95
Lewis, Sir George, 288, 304
Lez (one of Vatt Marashi’s body guard), 59
Library, Imperial (Petrograd), 190
Linlithgow, the Marquis of, 264
Linton (artist), 288
“Little Billee” (nickname), 127
Locker, Algernon (assistant editor of _Punch_), 163
Lockwood, Sir Frank (a caricaturist), 303
Lockwood, Colonel (now Lord Lambourne), 236
Lodge, Miss Mabelle (secretary and critic), 119
London, 52
_London_ Magazine, 202
Lonsdale, Lord, 291
Louvre, the keeper of the gems, 225
Love, Mr. F. A. (land telephone expert), 157
Love, laughable incidents on the wireless about, 159
Low, Sydney, 93
Lucas, E. V., 163
Lucca, 19, 23
Lucy, H. W. (“Toby, M.P.,” of _Punch_), 163
Ludwig Salvator, Archduke, 37
Lûk, an Albanian brigand, 52, 58, 59
Luxembourg, 211
Luxor, 148
Lyddington, 135
Lyric Club, 291, 292
Macedonia, 10, 34, 59, 60
Mackay, Eric, 288
Macnaghton, Sir Melville (of Scotland Yard), 295
Madge, Sir William (manager of _The Globe_), 164, 176
“Magic Circle” (professional conjurers’ club), 299
Mandercheff, Monsieur, 86
Manning, the late Cardinal, 178; a generous friend, 178
Marashi, Vatt, chief of the Skreli brigands, 45; invites Mr. Le Queux to his forbidden fastness, 45; the man hated by the Turks, 47; notwithstanding their barbaric customs, an Albanian’s word is his bond, 47; characteristics of the brigands, 48; mode of dressing, 48; Marashi’s welcome of the first Englishman to visit the brigands, 49; his hospitality and friendship, 50; Albanian code of honour astounding to Western ideas, 49; Vatt Marashi’s appearance and hearty good fellowship, 50; from first to last, a staunch and excellent friend, 50; Albanians are Christians and commit acts of brigandage only to annoy their ancient enemy, the Turk, 51; Marashi relates the glorious traditions of his sturdy race, and of the King of the Scanderberg family, George Castriot, 55; visit of Dêd Presci, chief of the Kastrati, a neighbouring tribe, 57; his appearance, 58; brigands’ dislike of photography, 58; Dêd Presci’s welcome of Le Queux and promise of sport and a safe escort if he ever came to visit him, 58; Albanians never betray a friend or forgive an enemy, 58; return to Cettigné from the Skreli country and audience with King Nicholas to give an account of experiences with Vatt Marashi and the banditti, 63
Marashut, Mrika Kol (the woman who carried on the blood-feud), 59
“Marcantonio” (an Armenian pianist and composer), 299
Marconi Company, 158
Marconi, Madame (mother of Senatore Marconi), 125
Marconi, Senatore, 157
Market Square, Northampton, 305
Marlowe, Mr. Thomas (editor of the _Daily Mail_), 100, 295
Marshall-Hall, Sir E., 174, 296
Maspero, Sir Gaston (Egyptologist), 148
Massingham, H. W., 192
Mathew, Mr. Theobald, 296
Matson, Major (military expert), 245
Maurojeni, Madame, 92, 93
May, Phil, 290
Mayfair, 126
McKenna, Mr., 256
Mecca, 115
Meissen, 37
_Mercur_, the (old Norwegian boat), 118
Merriman, Seton, 94
Messina, 216
Metropolitan Police, strike of, 171
Meyer, Mr. L., 158
Midleton, Earl of, 264
Mijatovitch, Count Chedo (three times Serbian Minister to the Court of St. James), 34, 64
Military Club, Belgrade, 84
Militza, Princess, 66
Milner, Viscount, 248
Mirko, Prince, 31, 66
Mobbs, Mr. A. Noel, 275, 305
Mobbs, D.S.O., Colonel E. R., 305
Monaco, Albert, Prince of (“Le Prince Rouge-et-Noir,” as King Edward called him), 116; his steam-yacht _Princess Alice_, 117; his intimate knowledge of oceanography, 117; his wonderful museum at Monaco, 117
Monaco, Bay of, 101
Monte Carlo, 26, 99, 122, 129; stories of, 303
Montenegro, 10
Montenegro, King Nicholas of, 17; accessible to any of his subjects, 65; a poet, 63; his poetry translated into English by Count Chedo Mijatovitch, 64. _See also_ Marashi Vatt
Montenegro, Milena, Queen of, Consort of King Nicholas, 66; her appearance and resemblance to her daughter, the Queen of Italy, 66; her death and burial in the Russian cemetery, at San Remo, 66
Montenegro, Xenia, Princess of, 31; assists W. Le Queux in taking photographs for the book _An Observer in the Near East_, 31; introduces the author to her elder sister, Queen Elena of Italy, 31
Montignoso, Countess of, 143
Montmartre, 201
Moor, Sir Ralph, 248
Moore, Augustus, 288
_Morning Post_, 126, 245
Morocco, 10
Moro-Giafferi, Maître (counsel for Landru), 232
Morrison, Alice Ann (ex-German spy), 124
Morton, Alexander (messenger-at-arms, of Glasgow), 262
Moscow, 97
Motor Club, 291
Muirhead, Ethel (an adventuress of the worst type). _See_ Morrison, Alice Ann, 124
Murray, Major-General Sir J. Wolfe, 248
Mürren, 99, 305
Mussolini, Signor, 21
_My Own Story_ (authoress, Luisa, Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony). _See_ Saxony, Luisa Princess of, 144
Nansen, 290
Naples, 20, 123
Nash, Mr. Eveleigh, publisher, 133, 134, 188, 243, 249, 274, 295; his amusing stories, 275; more amusing stories, 301. _See_ Hame
Neuilly, 111
Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 138, 252
Newcastle, Duke of, 261, 296
Newnes, Sir Frank, 189
Newnes, Sir George (founder of _Tit Bits_), 189, 193
Newnes, House of, 195
Newton, Lord, 248
Newton, Sir Alfred, 248
New Vagabonds’ Club, 294
New York, 123, 149
Nice, 29
Nice, Promenade des Anglais at, 26
Nichols, G. H. Fosdike (“Quex” of the _Evening News_), 293
Nicholson, Lieut.-General Sir William, 248
Nicoll, Sir Robert, 188
Nicoll, Sir William Robertson, 93, 293
Nikolitch, M. Andrea, Minister of Public Instruction, 79
Niton, Isle of Wight, 160
Northcliffe, Lord, 93, 100, 150, 171, 237, 242, 244, 251, 264; his secretary, Miss Owen, 250
Northcliffe, Lady, 264
Northumberland, the Duke of, 248
Noury Pasha, 106, 108, 110, 111
Oban, 140
Obrenovitch, The Royal House of, 69
Ochrida, in Macedonia, 59
O’Connor, T. P., 191, 273
Oddie, Mr. Ingleby (coroner for Westminster), 295
Odhams Limited (publishers), 193
“Old Lady,” the (Countess of Cardigan), 134
Old Vagabonds’ Club, 294
Orpen, Sir William, K.B.E., R.A., 278
Osborne, Lord Albert Godolphin, 295
O’Sullivan, Father (priest at Hounslow), 178
Otero, La Belle (dancer), 219, 292
Ouida (novelist), 19, 94
“Our Society” Club, 295; its nicknames, “The Crimes Club,” 295; membership limited to forty, 295; Lord Northcliffe on joining called it “The Forty Thieves,” 295; its members; its subscription, two half-crowns yearly, 296; its honorary secretary, Mr. Arthur Lambton, 298
Owen, Miss (Lord Northcliffe’s secretary), 250
Oxford, 118
Paget, Lady, 281
Paix, Rue de la, 140
Palermo, 216, 218
Palestine, 190
_Pall Mall Gazette_, 192
Palmer, Charles F. (editor of the _Globe_), 164, 173
Palmer, “Jean,” 126 (wife of Sir Walter Palmer), 127, 173
Palok, a member of the tribe of the Skreli, and trusted servant of King Nicholas, 45; conducts W. Le Queux to Vatt Marashi, 46, 53, 57–59. _See_ Marashi
Paoli, Monsieur, 29
Paris, 27; café de, 26
Paris stage celebrities, 219
Parma, Charles Duke of, 37
_Pascarel_ (by Ouida), 19
Paschitch, Monsieur Nicholas, Prime Minister of Serbia, 73, 75
Pasqualini, Marquis Mattioli, 18
Passeggio, at Leghorn, 37
Patchu, M. (Minister of Finance), 79
Paternoster Row, 188
Paul, Doctor, 230
Paul, Mr. Stanley, 189, 262
Pavolini, Commendatore (Chief of the Italian Secret Police), 216
Pearson, Sir C. Arthur, 189, 190
Pearson, House of, 196
_Pearson’s Weekly_, 196; Peter Keary of, 196
Pegli, near Genoa, 10
Peleshor, Château of, 198
Pemberton, Max, 93, 250, 273, 295
Penley (actor), 288
Pera Palace Hotel, 105, 115
Perrin, Madame, 109
Persia, Nasr-ed-Din, Shah of, 41, 42
Peru, 32
Peterborough Museum, 149
Peterson, Mr. Justice, 183
Petkoff, Monsieur Demetrius, 85, 86; shot dead, 88
Pettit, Henry, 288
Pharaoh, 147
Phillips, Mr. Frank, 158
Philipps, Lady Owen, 261
Piccadilly, 93
Pinckard, Miss Coral, 282
Pinckard, Mr. George (Lord of the Manor of Witley), 139, 284, 285
Pinckard, Mrs. George, 122, 139, 282
Pinero, 295
Pink, Dr. Thomas, 135
Pitti Palace, Florence, 143
Podgoritza, 48
Poincaré, M. Raymond, 221
Portarlington, Lord, 296
Portland Place, 245
Portsmouth, Lord, 90
Potinière, 100
Potsdam, 239
Potsdam, His Pompousness of (sobriquet of Kaiser), 99
Pounds, Courtice, 290
Praga, Alfred (President of the Society of Miniaturists), 290
Praterstrasse, 38
_Premier_ Magazine, 202
Presci, Dêd (chief of the Kastrati), 57
Prince of Wales’s Club, 291
Prince’s Street, Edinburgh, 140
_Princess Alice_ (Prince Albert of Monaco’s steam yacht), 117
Prior, Melton, 183
Prisrend, 51, 59
Pronunciation of Queux, 10, 100, 295
Pronunciation of Thugs, 299
Prussia, Prince Henry of, 239
Quartier Latin, 10
Quebec, 123
Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster, 245
Quex of _The Evening News_, 293
“Quex and Brex,” 100
Quex, The Gay Lord, 295
Quirinal Palace, 17, 66
Rachitch, the chef, 75
Radio Engineers, Institute of, 11
Radio, humorous stories of, 160
Radio-telephony, 157
Rampolla, Cardinal, 178
Randolph Hotel, Oxford, 120
Rasputin, the monk, 270
Ravenna, 23
Rawlinson, Colonel Sir Henry, 248
Rebecque, Count de (sharper), 219
Redetski, Count de, 14
Reform Club, 195, 246
Regina Elena (Messina), 216
Registry Office, Henrietta Street, 144
Revillion (Préfet of Basses-Alpes), 286
Ribarska Banya, the, cure for rheumatism, 72
Richardson, Frank, 293, 301, 302
Richebourg, Emile, 162
Richmond, 264
Richmond, Mr. Barry, and the Humbert case, 206
Riddell, Lord, 189
Rimini, casino at, 155
Ripanje, 72
Ritz Hotel, 97, 103
Riviera, 125
Rizzetti, Count Ugo, 214
Roberts, Lord, 15, 19, 90, 236–238, 222, 242, 244, 251; his opinion of King Leopold, 101; characteristic letter, 247; President of New Vagabonds’ Club, 294
Rochdale, Lord, 264
Rochiori, 4th Regiment de, 99
Rohr, journalist, _Neue Freie Presse_, 41
Rok, member of the tribe of the Skreli, 45, 47
Rollit, M.P., Sir Albert, 248
Romanoffs, the, 16
Romano’s (in the Strand), 191
Rome, 36, 66, 123
Rosebery, the Earl of, 248
Ross, Mrs., 19
Rossi, Pietro (assassin). _See_ Rizzetti, Count Ugo, 214
Rossmore, Lord, 201, 202
Rostand, 221
Rosyth, 262
Rotterdam, 159
Roumania, Charles, King of, 91, 95
Roumania, Marie, Queen of, 98; brilliant conversationalist, 99
Roxburghe, the Duchess of, 264
_Royal_ Magazine, 198, 199
Rule’s in Maiden Lane, 289
Russell, Sir Charles, 191
Russia, 10; under the Tzars, 187; the late Emperor of, 13–17; Peter, Grand Duke of, 66
Ryle, Bishop, 170
Sackville, Lord, 296
Safe, Tony, 283
Saint Aulaire, Countess of, 122
St. Barbe College, 220
St. James’ Club, 97
St. James’ Place, 264
St. Moritz, 99
St. Paul’s Cathedral, 242
Sala, George Augustus (travelling correspondent of the _Daily Telegraph_), 179, 183; he and W. Le Queux disguise as peasant pilgrims to see the Holy Coat at Treves, 180
Salisbury, Lord (Premier of England), 163
Salm-Reifierscheidt, Count, 40, 41
Salzburg, 36, 42; Imperial Castle of, 143
San Marino, Republic of, 10, 17
San Rossore, near Pisa, 22
Sarajevo, 224
Savage Club, 94, 246
Savoff, General, 87
Savoy Hotel, 144, 151
Saxony, Crown Prince of (now King), 13
Saxony, Luisa, Princess of, 102, 109, 140, 143; her sense of humour and fund of anecdotes, 35; Poldo, her brother, 36; stories of Dom Pedro of Brazil, 35; and Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 37; usually called herself Countess of Montignoso or Countess de la Rose when travelling, 37; story of the Grand Duke Charles of Parma “and his damned dentist,” 39; the Emperor Karl of Austria steals his mother’s jewels and gives them to Elsa Bland the Jewess operatic singer, 40
_S’bogom_, common salutation of greeting or farewell in all Slav countries, 45
Scarborough, bombardment predicted, 251
Schloss, the, 38
Scotland Yard, 29
Scrutton, Lord Justice (of copyright knowledge), 180
Scutari, 45, 47, 50
Secret agent of Great Britain, 251
Selamlik, the, 110
Serbia, George, Crown Prince of, 74; the original of the character of “Prince Danilo” in the _Merry Widow_, 75; his fondness for the ballet, 76; his love of practical jokes, 76; showed himself to be a competent officer and nearly lost his life in saving that of a sergeant-major at the battle of Kumonovo, 76
Serbia, King Peter of, 67; compelled to succeed to the throne of Serbia, had no desire to become King of Serbia, absorbing love romance, the most misjudged monarch of Europe, grandson of the peasant hero Karageorgevitch, a born soldier, resemblance to Earl Roberts, fought at the head of a troop which he raised for the emancipation of Bosnia, 68; fought in 1870 on the French side against the Germans, awarded the Legion of Honour; and again, in 1914, he fought against the Germans, 69; King Peter in addition to being a soldier was also an artist, 83; his death, 83
Seton-Karr, Sir Henry, 248
Shepherd, C. W. (editor _Northern_ Newspaper Syndicate), 199
Shiala, the, enemies of the Skreli, 46
Shoreham, 155
Shorter, Clement, 93, 188, 293
Shrewsbury, 183
Siberia, 10, 15
Sigismund, Archduke, 36
_Signa_ (by Ouida), 19
Simpson’s (in the Strand), 175
Sims, George R., 173, 288, 295, 302
Sinaia, 98
Sinclair, Mr. Duncan (of the Air Ministry), 157
Skupchtina, the, 80
Sladen, Douglas, 94, 188, 201, 264
Slavin, Frank (pugilist), 282, 283
Slough, 306
Sobranje, the (Parliament), 87
Sofia, 84
Sohet (publicity-expert), 219
Sohet, Madame (Gabrielle Deltour), 219
Solomon, King, 190; treasures of his temple, 191
Sommer (aviator), 153
Spa, in Belgium, 152
Spain, King of, 284
Spencer, Mr. Alfred, 188
Speyer, Sir Edgar, 261
Spies, German, 225, 235, 237
Spilsbury, Dr., 226
Spiridon (painter of “Sappho”), 286
Spitzbergen, 117
Springfield, Lincoln (editor of _London Opinion_), 165, 173, 191–193
Spurgeon, Sir Arthur, 189
Stambuloff, M. (predecessor of Petkoff and shared the same fate), 88
Stana, Princess (wife of the Grand Duke Nicholas), 66
Stancioff, Monsieur Dmitri, 86
Stanley, Sir H. M. (the explorer), 100, 165, 167. _See_ Harding, George
_Star_, the, 192
Stead, Mr. W. T., 15
Steinhauer, Herr (director of German espionage), 268
_Stella Polare_ (Polar travels), 18
Stevens, Fred (a crook), 269
Stockholm, 189
Stone, Miss (the American), held to ransom by the Skreli brigands, 45; large sum paid by U.S. Government for her release, 50
Stoyanovitch, Costa (Minister of Commerce), 75
Strong, Alderman and Sheriff Sir Vesey, 248
Stud House, Hampton Court, 202
Sûdan, 10
Sutherland, D. M. (editor _Pall Mall Gazette_), 200
Sutton, Sir George, 293
Switzerland, 11
“Tatcho Sims” 302
Tatlers’ Club, 299
Tcholak-Antich, Colonel, 69
Tennant, Miss Dorothy, 165
Tennyson, 65, 195
Terris, Will (the actor), 288
Terry, Mr. Charles, 193
Terry, Ellen, 163
Thebes, 147, 148
“The Day,” German preparations in England for, 254
“The Thugs” (new club formed by Oxford undergraduates), 299
_The Times_, 10, 245
Thirteen Club, 299
Thomas, Brandon (author of _Charley’s Aunt_), 288
Thomson, Mr. D. C. (proprietor of _Dundee Courier_), 237
Thomson’s (of Dundee), 189
Thurstrup, Captain, 270
Tilbury (office boy and sometimes tipster for Larry Lynx), 177
“Toby” (a dog), 120
Toft (sculptor), 290
Toselli, Signor, 144, 145
Tower Publishing Company, 188
Townsend, Mr. F. T. (Secretary of Ipswich Wireless Club), 159
Townshend, Marchioness, 122
Tozer, Basil, 153, 276, 278
Traitors, unearthed in France--Lenoir, Bolo Pasha and many others, 259; Britain has betrayers still in her midst, 260
Travellers’ Club, Paris, 96, 300
Tree, Beerbohm, 288
Tree, Lady, 252
Tree, Miss Viola, 252
Treves, 179
Trieste, 44
_Trilby_, 127
Trinity College, Oxford, 120
Tromsö 117
Troubetskoy, Princess, 122
Tucker, Mr. Alexander, 75
Tugs, Thougs, or Thugs, 299; the right pronunciation of, 299; the ex-Lord Chancellor pronounced that it should be “Tugs,” so “Tugs” it is, 299
Tunisia, 10
Turf Club in Cairo, 300
Turf Club, London, 183
Turkey, 169; intrigues of, 34; Tewfik Pasha, Grand Vizier, 105
Turkish Revolutionary Party, 107
Turner, General Sir Alfred, 252
Turner, Sir George, 295
Turney, Sir John, 248
Tuscany, Ferdinand IV., Grand Duke of (father of Luisa, Ex-Crown Princess of Saxony), 143
Tuscany, Princess Luisa of, 13
“Tweedles” (a dog), 120
Tweedmouth, Lord, 248
Tyler, Sir Henry W., 248
Tyne, 245
Tsarskoye Selo, Palace of, 14
“Uncle Smith” (of the Junior Garrick Club), 290
Unwin, Mr. Fisher, 188
Ushabitu figures, 148
Uskub, 59
Vacaresco, Mademoiselle Helen, 95
Vagabond Club, 94
Vambery, Professor (Oriental scholar), 115
Vardö, 118
Vaughan, Baroness, 102
Vaughan, Father Bernard, 170
Verdi, 140
Verne, Jules, 250
Vesnitch, Dr. Milenko, Minister of Justice, and afterwards Serbian Minister in Paris, 75
Vesnitch, Madame, 75
Via Balbi, in Genoa, 22, 23
Victor Emanuel, King of Italy, 22
Victoria, H.M.S. (Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon’s ship), 172
Victoria Hotel at Hastings, 301
Victoria, Queen, 26; dislike for the late Baron de Hirsch, 27; her parsimony, 29; last visit to Nice, 29
Vienna, 37, 99, 115
Villa Igiea Hotel, Palermo, 213
Villa Regala, Bucharest, 96
Villefranche, 101
Vinadio, Baroness di, 217
Vladaja, 87
Vries, Mademoiselle de, 292
Waldeck-Rousseau (famous lawyer), 209
Wall Street, New York, 139, 150
Waller, Mr. Lewis, 252
Walters, John (Queen Victoria’s coachman), 177
War Office, 259
Ward and Lock (publishers), 188, 279
Ward, Mr. W. A. (Sheffield), 159
Waterhouse, Sir H., 295
Watt, Mr. A. P. (literary agent), 188, 250
Wegner, Detective-Sergeant (expert on alien enemies), 262
Wells, H. G., 93
Wells, Sir Sydney Russell, 295
Wemyss, the Earl of, 248
Westmorland, Countess of, 132, 252
Weybourne Gap, Norfolk, 245
Whiskers and Frank Richardson, 301
Whitcomb Street, 293
White, Arnold, 293
White, F. V. (publisher), 197
White, Field-Marshal Sir George, 248
Whitehall, 89, 222
Whitehead, Sir Beethom (British Minister at Belgrade), 77
Whitelaw, David (novelist), 202
_Who’s Who_, 10, 163
Wilde, Oscar, 127, 173
Wilkin, Rear-Admiral H. W., 137, 242
Wilkinson, Mr. Spenser, 248
Willcox, Dr., 226
Willcox, Mr. L. C. (of Warminster), 159
“Willie Liqueur” (sobriquet of W. Le Queux), 131
Willy, 221
Wilmersdorf, 115
Wilson, H. W. (naval expert), 245
Winchester, Clarence (aviator, wrote _Flying Men and Their Machines_), 155
Windsor, 30; lecture at Town Hall, 265 (Lord Headley, chairman)
Windt, Harry de (explorer and traveller), 10, 15, 100, 117, 153, 283
Wireless, 18; broadcasting, 157, 158
Wireless station, Crookhaven, 161
Witthaus, Dr., 226
Woodman, Sheriff Sir George, 248
Woods, Mr. G. (of Liverpool), 159
Wozzle, an imaginary village (Hatfield), 164
Wozzleite, a pseudonym of Lord Salisbury, 164
X., Lady, little, 129
X., Madame (engaged to King Peter), 67, 69, 83
Xenia, Princess, 66
Yildiz, the, 109, 112, 114
Young, Filson, 295
Yukon, 282
Zeppelin, Count, 241
Zola, 19, 162, 164, 209, 210
Zola, Madame, 205
_Zoraida_ (a novel), in Irish daily paper, 188
Zurich, 239
Transcriber’s Note:
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These were not changed. Six misspelled words were corrected.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like this_. Those in bold are surrounded by equal signs, =like this=. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, reversed, upside down, or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added. Duplicate letters at line endings were removed.