He has been accused of a partiality for
whisky hot, especially when served by female hands, of ordering
soles by special train at Nuremberg, though he only disposed or
them at breakfast not knowing their price or from whence they
came. Blackburne and Hoffer are responsible for the statement
that he sat up through the night at Vienna preparing statistics,
with nothing but his hat on. The allegation in the Field and
elsewhere that he instructed the French President to fetch a cab
for him on a busy fete day at the Champs de Elysees, in 1878, is
not just, that genial and courteous gentleman having volunteered
to do so under exceptional circumstances, and as all act of
sympathy, and perhaps on account of Bird's play, who though
suffering acutely from gout on that particular day won one of his
two best games of Anderssen. If Bird had a carriage and pair to
the barbers to get a shave (quite recently asserted) it was because
he could not find a conveyance with one horse in time to reach
his destination. When he made a late dinner solely off Pate
de Foie Grass at the Marquis d'Andigny's banquet at St. Germains,
Paris, in 1878, when there were any number of courses, he did so
because be liked the flavour (certainly did not find it savourless)
not comprehending the waiter's surprise or aware of its bilious
tendency till afterwards.
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