burn was extremely absent and otherwise odd: upon one occasion I gave him a letter to frank, which he deliberately opened and read in my presence; and on my asking him if it amused him, he replied that he did not understand what it meant. Upon another occasion, the Duke of Gloucester, accompanied by Mr. Blackburn, went out to shoot pheasants in the preserves near the Hale; when all of a sudden, Mr. B. observing that the Duke's gun was cocked, asked his Royal Highness whether he always carried his gun cocked. "Yes, Blackburn, always," was the reply. "Well then, good morning, your Royal Highness; I will no longer accompany you."
At dinner Mr. Blackburn was very eccentric: he would never surrender his place at table even to royalty; so the Duke was obliged to sit near him. Whenever the royal servant filled the Duke's glass with wine and water, Mr. B. invariably drank it off; until at length, the Duke asked his servant for more wine and water, and anticipating a repetition of the farce that had so often been played, drank it off, and said, "Well, Blackburn, I have done you at last." After dinner the Duke and the men went to join the
