The fact that the _Illustrated London News_ was the world's premier journal of its class went for nothing. The offers of the other correspondents of the English Press to back my father's signature were dismissed with disdain. When the colonel was reminded that he held a considerable amount of money voted by Parliament, he retorted: "That is for necessitous persons! But you ask me to _lend_ you money!" "Quite so," my father replied; "I do not wish to be a charge on the Treasury. I simply want a loan, as I have a difficult and perhaps an expensive journey before me." "How much do you want?" snapped the colonel. "Well," said my father, "I should feel more comfortable if I had a thousand francs (£40) in my pocket." "Forty pounds!" cried Colonel Walker, as if lost in amazement. And getting up from his chair he went on, in the most theatrical manner possible: "Why, do you know, sir, that if I were to let you have forty pounds, I might find myself in the greatest possible difficulty. To-morrow--perhaps, even to-night--there might be hundreds of our suffering fellow-countrymen outside the gates of Versailles, and I unable to relieve them!" "But," said my father quietly, "you would still be holding £3960, Colonel Walker." The colonel glared, and my father, not caring to prolong such an interview, walked out of the room, followed by myself.
A good many of the poorer people who quitted Paris with us never repaired to Versailles at all, but left us at Corbeil or elsewhere to make their way across France as best they could. Another party, about one hundred strong, was, however, subsequently sent out of the capital with the assistance of Mr. Washburne, and in their case Colonel Walker had to expend some money. But every grant was a very niggardly one, and it would not surprise me to learn that the bulk of the money voted by Parliament was ultimately returned to the Treasury--which circumstance would probably account for the "full approval" which the Government bestowed on the colonel's conduct at this period. He died early in 1894, and soon afterwards some of his correspondence was published in a volume entitled "Days of a Soldier's Life." On reading a review of that work in one of the leading literary journals, I was struck by a passage in which Walker was described as a disappointed and embittered man, who always felt that his merits were not sufficiently recognized, although he was given a knighthood and retired with the honorary rank of general. I presume that his ambition was at least a viscounty, if not an earldom, and a field-marshal's _bâton_.