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224 this great man, and in consequence I had frequently placed myself in such a position that a meeting under the most favourable auspices might be reasonably brought about. Unfortunately, Sir Walter did not enter at all into the social life of the district, and his memory was so bad, or his pre-occupation so great, that my discreet advances, which the easy etiquette of the countryside permitted on our chance encounters led to nothing.

On one occasion, for a period of a week, I spent every day, beginning at a very early hour indeed, geologising in some disused lime-pits a couple of miles outside the village on the Cornwall road. From a monograph which he had recently contributed to one of the reviews, I knew that Sir Walter was keenly interested in the Devonian strata, so that when I heard in an indirect way that he had spoken of spending that week working in the Cornwall road, the deduction was a very natural one on my part. The opportunity of being there before him and almost, as it were, receiving him attracted me.

As I have said, I did actually carry out this idea, and through a week of very unpleasant weather I resolutely held my ground, although the early start, the conditions under which I took my meals, and the uncongenial nature of the occupation (in which I felt no real interest) tried my patience repeatedly. At the end of the week as I passed the railway station on my way home I discerned the object of all my amiable strategy alighting from the London train. I then learned that he had been up in town all the time, carrying on some research at the Natural History Museum, and that his reference had in reality been to Cromwell Road, which the artless Willet had either misheard or simple-mindedly confused with the better-known local highway.

I will not deny that this experience depressed me, and for the next few months I retained a conviction that