A DAY-DREAM AT MY UNCLE’S. The result of a serious conversation between the authors of my being ended in the resolution that it was high time for me to begin the world, and do something for myself. The only difficult problem left for them to solve was, in what way I had better commence. One would have thought the world had nothing in its whole construction but futile beginnings and most... more...

SEPTEMBER 2, 1914. Reports still continue to come in as to the outbursts of rage which took place in Germany when the news of our participation in the War reached that country. Seeing that we had merely been asked to allow our friends to be robbed and murdered, our interference is looked upon as peculiarly gratuitous. We hear, by the way, that the Germans, who hold Kiao-chau on a long lease, appealed... more...

MILLIE AND THE "KAYSER." Millie is a "daily help." Who it is that she helps—whether herself or her employer—I am not in a position to say, for I am only temporarily a lodger in the house where Millie helps, and she doesn't help me much. But to-day I have made her hear and understand one whole sentence. It is the first time during the six days that we have known each other that... more...

A PAIR OF MILITARY GLOVES. It was in Italy, on my way home from Egypt to be demobilised, that I decided to buy a pair of warm gloves from Ordnance. After being directed by helpful other ranks to the A.S.C. Depot, the Camp Commandant's Office and the Y.M.C.A., I found myself, at the end of a morning's strenuous walking, confronted by notices on a closed door stating that this was the... more...

LEAVES FROM A CANDIDATE'S DIARY. Thursday, June 12.—Letters from Billsbury arrive by every post, Horticultural Societies, sea-side excursions, Sunday School pic-nics, cricket club fêtes, all demand subscriptions, and, as a rule, get them. If this goes on much longer I shall be wound up in the Bankruptcy Court. Shall have to make a stand soon, but how to begin is the difficulty. Pretty certain... more...

CHARIVARIA. According to The Evening News, lambs have already put in an appearance in Dorset. People who expect the Poet Laureate to rush to the spot will be bitterly disappointed. "What was a golden eagle doing in Lincolnshire?" asks "L.G.M." in The Daily Mail. We never answer these personal questions. The Public Libraries Committee of West Ham has declined to purchase The... more...

MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. AN ADAPTATION, BY ORPHEUS C. KERR. CHAPTER XII. A NIGHT OF IT WITH MCLAUGHLIN. Judge SWEENEY, with a certain supercilious consciousness that he is figuring in a novel, and that it will not do for him to thwart the eccentricities of mysterious fiction by any commonplace deference to the mere meteorological weaknesses of ordinary human nature, does not allow the fact that late... more...

VOCES POPULI. IN A FOG.—A REMINISCENCE OF THE PAST MONTH. SCENE—Main Thoroughfare near Hyde Park. Time 8 P.M. Nothing visible anywhere, but very much audible; horses slipping and plunging, wheels grinding, crashes, jolts, and English as she is spoke on such occasions. Mrs. Flusters (who is seated in a brougham with her husband, on their way to dine with some friends in Cromwell Road). We shall be... more...

"'The Humours of the Town!' Archaic phrase, Breathing of Brummel and the dandy days Of curly hats and gaiters! 'Humours' seem rarer now, at least by night, In this strange world of gilt and garish light, And bibulous wits and waiters." So I. The Shadow smiled. "There's food for mirth In every nook of the sun-circling earth That human foot hath trodden. Man, the... more...

A WHIFF OF THE BRINY. As I entered the D.E.F. Company's depôt, Melancholy marked me for her own. Business reasons—not my own but the more cogent business reasons of an upperling—had just postponed my summer holiday; postponed it with a lofty vagueness to "possibly November. We might be able to let you go by then, my boy." November! What would Shrimpton-on-Sea be like even at the... more...