Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/401

 But years passed, and I heard no more of the subject. Finally the book was brought out by the most unsuitable of all possible publishers, Mr. Thorn, the official printer of the Irish Government. After I left Australia Mr. Thorn sent out a case to my address containing the fifty copies I had promised to take, and along with them the alternative dozen intended for subscribers in case they could only be sent after I had left Australia, and with the case not a scrap of information on the price at which the volume was to be sold or any other subject. Mrs. Hutton must, I fear, have found it an unpleasant experiment if the business was so managed generally; and for my part I found the only satisfactory way out of the difficulty was a cheque for the entire claim as soon as I found that the price of the book was ten shillings.

Of a multitude of farewell letters which my intended retirement produced, I shall quote only one from an eminent man whom I had recently added to the list of my friends:—

As the Session approached its close, I announced that I would not again occupy the Chair, or be a member of the coming Parliament. I took farewell of a House in which I had served since its creation, to which I had given without stint toil of mind and body, and which had bestowed on me all the favours it could confer on a public man. I owed