ploit I had been in not long before that, and complimented me on it in terms which I am still too modest to repeat. But all of a sudden he broke out "Why I know you, I know you all right, you are the lad that wanted to give me the overcoat!" The overcoat! I did not remember at first about my overcoat, but Kropotkin had not forgotten. It came back to me. That time he was in Edinburgh and we got him to spend an evening with us Comrades, we noted that he had no overcoat. Well, the climate of Edinburgh is not arctic; a man will not freeze to death without an overcoat. Nevertheless, the boys had got together and each put up something towards an overcoat for him. Just why after that they should have selected me for the delicate mission of inducing him to accept it is not clear to me; but I suppose it was because it was I who had first got acquainted with him and they imagined that I knew him better. In those days hand-me-down, the ready made, was not so common. Garments were made more to measure at the time. Gilray gave me an order on his tailor for a good overcoat. Of course Kropotkin had merely laughed the idea away, when I brought it up. No, he could not accept the overcoat; he was doing all right and did not need assistance in that way. I had forgotten the whole affair. But the old man had remembered. We could not induce him then to give up his hotel room and stay with one of us, but I am glad to say that later he became better acquainted with our Scottish hospitality. On a later visit he stayed for a week with Harry Campbell, one of our working-men Comrades, and evidently had quite a happy time with Harry and Harry's fine wife, and even with the two little devils, Harry's boys, now grown up in New Zealand, into fine brave men like their father. I had a long and animated discussion with Peter that night; I shall tell you about it in my next.

I went abroad again soon and saw but little of Kropotkin for some years. But sometime in the later Nineties, I was settled in London for a while and I went to live at Hither Green which is not far from Bromley. My wife, Lizzie Turner, a sister of John Turner, knew the Kropotkins well and was very fond of them as they were of her, so we had the habit of going over to the old man's on Sunday afternoon, along with Harry Kelly and his Mary. There we met many of the most interesting people and heard Peter's discussions with them — with Malatista. Tchaikovsky, Torrida del Maronol, for instance. I shall try to tell you about it.