PERFECT HOST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 June 1941, Page 6

PERFECT HOST

WILLIAM BOSVILLE’S STRICT WAYS. He was. indeed, the perfect host —as long as you arrived on time, but woe betide you if you were as much as twenty seconds late. I will introduce you. therefore, to William Bosville Esq., usually and familiarly called Colonel Bosville, and you will be pleased to style him ’as such —though I may as well admit that he was never anything higher than a lieutenant. Born in 1745, he lived till 1813. and was one of the Bosvilles of West Bretton in Yorkshire, inheriting a great fortune, which he spent liberally and gave away as generously. A very odd man he was. for he persisted to the end of his days in dredging in the fashion of a courtier pf George the Second's time, wearing a single-breasted coat, and always having his hair powdered and done in a queue. .His friends were numerous, and there is no wonder, for it was his custom to welcome all to dinner at his house in Welbeck Street. London.

Only mark this, he would never sit down with more than eleven others — never: and though anyone might come and all were welcome, he went down to dinner at five prompt. On the first stroke of five, not on the second, he rose, and walked down to ,lhe diningroom. and if anyone arrived after he was seated, they could call the following day. “Some say better late than never,” ho used to quote, ‘but I say better never than late." On the morning of the day on which he died, ho gave orders for dinner. The guests came . . . but William Bosville was late.