received. But he hastened to assure me that my "interference" with Malet's diplomacy was in no way resented by his chief. On the contrary, Mr. Gladstone was very much obliged to me for my letters, and for the line I had taken in Egypt. It was a busy time for him, however, just then, the busiest of the official year, the weeks before Easter, and the thoughts of ministers were elsewhere than in Egypt. The Irish question was priming everything in Mr. Gladstone's mind. I might, however, make my own mind comfortable about the dangers which seemed to threaten at Cairo. They could not lead to serious trouble. Whatever might be the ideas "over the way" (meaning the Foreign Office), Mr. Gladstone would see that they were not put in practice. Armed intervention with Mr. Gladstone in power was an "impossibility." The mere thought of it was ridiculous. We would talk of it again and I should see Mr. Gladstone later. In the meanwhile Hamilton would let Lord Granville know that I was come. I left him entirely reassured.
Another visit I paid the same morning was to my cousin, Algernon Bourke (then generally known as "Button" to his friends). His rôle in Egyptian affairs that year was destined to be an important one, and his name, or rather his pseudo-name, constantly recurs in my diary. His position in life was that of a young man of fashion, closely connected with the official world, for he was a younger son of the Lord Mayo who had been Viceroy of India, and was nephew to the Rt. Hon. Robert Bourke (afterwards Lord Connemara), who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and was now, in 1882, leader of the Tory opposition in the House of Commons on all questions of foreign politics. Button had also a position on the staff of the "Times," not as a writer, but as an intermediary for Chenery, the editor, with political personages. As a peer's son he had the entrée to the galleries of both Houses of Parliament, knew everybody and everything that was going on there, was intimate with people about the Court, with the high world of finance, and generally with the wire-pullers in the various departments of the State. Our friendship was a close one, and throughout the trying months that