[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPICTATOP:]
Sin,—In my Balliol days it was said that a very absent-minded undergraduate, going for a walk with Jowett, complained of feeling weak and unwell. Jowett asked him what he had eaten that day. He thought for a moment, and then said that he could not remember having eaten anything but two walnuts. Jowett burst out laughing. Once, some salt having been accidentally spilt on a dinner-table, an eccentric Lancashire gentleman is said to have made haste to repair the mischief by pouring some port wine over it ! The same mental absentee (so to call him) is, or was, a connoisseur in china. Some question about china having been raised at a dinner- party, it is reported that, forgetting that his plate was full of soup, he turned it upside down, in order to look at the mark underneath.
From these doubtful anecdotes I pass on to one or two which I can give on good authority. The late Rev. W. E. Jelf told me that his brother, the Principal of King's College (now chiefly remembered as the courteous adversary, or perhaps the persecuteur malgre lui, of Maurice), once, when giving a dinner-party, hired a butler who was quite new to the work. The poor man, after drawing for the first time the cork of a champagne-bottle, lost his head so completely that he poured part (or the whole) of the contents down a lady's back. Another of Mr. Jelf's numerous anecdotes may be mentioned. I was reading with him at his beautiful place between Dolgelly and Barmouth. He assured me that a raw Welsh servant once announced to him some visitors as " Them people as lives on the other side of the water."—I am, Sir, &c.,
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