Various

“ This was growing too complicated, and I wished heartily we had stuck to Glasgow and its weather.
"One finds them," she added, "so hard to follow."
I racked my miserable brain for anything that was lengthy, populous, and difficult to follow; in vain.
"Still," I gasped, glancing at the door, "one can always ... one can generally ... one can sometimes sit down ... for a rest ... if one is dreadfully tired," I explained.
She gazed at me reproachfully.
"I don't usually stand at the back of the pit," she said. ”

“ Let Parliament be a movable institution, sitting for one week in Australia, for one week in Canada, for one week in Ireland, and so on. In the course of a year it will have sat in all the component parts of the Empire, which will then, indeed, be an Empire on which the sun never sets, and in which Parliament always sits. ”

“ I have been seriously annoyed for some weeks now by a noisy chimney-cowl on your property at 15, Poynings Road. It is on the stack of chimneys at the rear of your property, and within about fifty yards of the back windows of this house. During the recent high winds the cowl has kept up a continual shrieking, day and night, which has been extremely destructive to "Nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." I trust that you will be so good as to have the cowl overhauled, and this cause of disturbance removed. ”

“ We were sitting in the loggia after what I don't call breakfast—all of us except Simpson, who was busy with a mysterious package. We had not many days left; and I was beginning to feel that, personally, I should not be sorry to see things like porridge again. Each to his taste.
"The time has passed absurdly quickly," said Myra. "We don't seem to have done anything—except enjoy ourselves. I mean anything specially Rivierish.' But it's been heavenly."
"We've done lots of Rivierish things," I protested. "If you'll be quiet a moment I'll tell you some." ”

“ Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries. ”

“ As I write this in London I have Simpson's album in front of me. Should you ever do us the honour of dining with us (as I hope you will) , and (which seems impossible) should there ever come a moment when the conversation runs low, and you are revolving in your mind whether it is worth while asking us if we have been to any theatres lately, then I shall produce the album, and you will be left in no doubt that we are just back from the Riviera. You will see oranges and lemons and olives and cactuses and palms ”

“ Besides, no one is asked to eat conger-eel at the best houses.
Meat.
Beef, mutton and pork are in good condition, or, if they are not, they ought to be. But the ways of the animal world are inscrutable, especially pigs. Lambs, again, show a strange want of consideration for the consumer, for, though April 12th is called "Lamb and Gooseberry-Pie Day," lamb, like veal, is dear just now and shows no signs of becoming less expensive. This is one of the things which independent back-bench Members should ask a question about in the House of Commons, or, failing that, they might write to The Times. ”

“ Mercifully he had a steady head and a very strong back, or something must have given way under the strain that his creator puts upon him. No hero in modern fiction has jumped so frequently from the frying-pan into the fire with so little injury to himself. ”

“ Martell is one of those men that you might live next door to for half-a-century and never know any better. It is entirely owing to his wife and her love for Peter that Martell and I have discovered each other to be quite companionable fellows with many tastes in common, and I am smoking one of his cigars at the present moment. ”

“ Meanwhile our tramp, who had seen better days and was something of a mathematician, calculated that the total sum spent on counsels' fees alone up to this point was well over two hundred guineas.
Social reformers get mixed up in everything nowadays, and one appeared in the affair at this juncture. Having chanced to be in court at the hearing [Pg 286] of the Malicious Prosecution suit, he had formed an opinion of the last-mentioned jury, and in an extremely witty speech, had included them specifically in the long list of people and things that were no better than they should, be. ”

“ Hornblower is at his old games. His plan for settling the Irish question is no plan at all, as I have frequently shown. Whenever it has been submitted to the fire of criticism it has been found that it will not wash. It is quite useless to try to mix oil and vinegar in a jug that will not hold water.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I am a convinced supporter of a Federal Solution and have for many years endeavoured to remove the public apathy which I have found to exist in regard to this profoundly interesting question. ”

“ May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents here. ”

“ He has the gift of characterisation with humour, is clever at reproducing evidently authentic and entertaining dialogues, and has caught the Western idiom, not only in these set reproductions, but unconsciously in his own writing, which is singularly straightforward and attractive, nor burdened with the sort of cleverness which the young graduate is apt to air. ”

“ I am totally opposed to giving theatres the same comfortable rules as the variety halls. If people may smoke at musical comedies they are in danger of avoiding revues.
Mr. G. K. Chesterton. I am in favour of giving the public all they want. Let them smoke if they wish to, everywhere and everywhen. Let them also chew and take snuff: a private snuff-box should be attached to every stall.
Mr. Victor Grayson. I would support smoking in theatres if pipes were permitted. ”

“ Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of the social reformer. ”

“ Let us rather remember that the more they are neglected by the diner during the mating season the more of them there will be to eat when the horrid period of restriction is over. Among the rarer birds which are now on the market to compensate us may be mentioned the bobolink, the dwarf cassowary, the Bombay duckling and the skewbald fintail. ”

“ Andrew Fitzpatrick, who looped the loop last Friday at Hendon with her son Hector, is certainly one of the youngest-looking women in the world of her age—for she is put down in black and white as forty-four in more than one book of reference. ”

“ An agreeable seasonal feature is the widening of the horizon to the fruit lover. All sorts of delightful foreign species and sub-species may now be bad for cash or (if one is lucky) credit—such as bomboudiac, angelica, piperazine, zakuska, shalloofs and pampooties. ”

“ Whatever the consequences might be I meant to have my snake, and while I was collecting it from the floor and cramming it back in the box I discovered my defence.
Smiling my very best smile, I turned and faced the angry officials the other side of the counter and, holding the box towards them, pointed to three printed words underneath: "Made in Germany."
"The Prime Minister left Cupar by the 5.29 train.... The motor arrived at the station at 5.55 and the party went in leisurely fashion down the station steps."—Glasgow Herald.
What it is to be a Prime Minister! ”

“ The power of the motor! "At the request of the Car," says The Westminster Gazette, "M. Poincare will leave on his visit to Russia, after the national fêtes on July 14."
A couple of pictures by unknown artists fetched as much as £2,625 and £1,837 at Christie's last week, and we hear that some of our less notable painters have been greatly encouraged by this boom in obscurity.
"This Machine," says an advertisement of a motor cycle, "Gets You Out-of-Doors—and Keeps You There." Frankly, we prefer the sort that Gets You Home Again. ”

“ And what sort of food do you give him?"
"Well, he tried to swallow one of my white ties last night."
"Oh, but I should give him proper food," she said. "He doesn't hate cats, does he? I couldn't bear a dog that did."
My eyes met Martell's for one moment, then I cleared my throat. Slowly and sadly I opened the history of Peter militant, with unacknowledged borrowings from the lives of other Peters with other names. Beginning [Pg 290] with cats I had seen in my garden looking as if they felt rather blurred and indistinct, I passed on through cats speechless and perforated, to cats that were. ”

“ To-day they are anything from ninepence to a shilling each, and in a fortnight's time they will be sixpence each, with the added pleasure to the consumer of now and then finding a young plover inside.
"Buy a puzzle, Sir?"
"On Wednesday of last week an express train dashed into a flock of sheep being driven over a level crossing at Northallerton to-day."
Meat Trades' Journal.
Only an express train could arrive a week early; the other ones are always late.
From a calendar:—
"April 6th. Dividends due. 'We needs must love the highest when we see it.'"
Unfortunately we don't often see it. ”

“ So I wrote to a friend of mine and asked him to send me out one, and some films and things, just as a surprise for you."
"Samuel, you are a dear," said Myra, looking at him lovingly.
"You see, I thought, Myra, you'd like to have some records of the place, because they're so jolly to look back on, and—er, I'm not quite sure how you work it, but I expect some of you know, and—er——"
"Come on," said Myra, "I'll show you." She retired with Simpson to a secluded part of the loggia and helped him put the films in.
"Nothing can save us," said Archie. "We are going to be taken together in a group. ”

“ We beg to challenge this statement. When the Armada was sighted Drake went on with his game of bowls. To-day, in similar circumstances, we are confident that thousands of Englishmen would refuse to leave their game of golf.
CAPTIVE GOLF. Defaulting golf-club official trying to impart a little interest to the daily round. ”