Various

“ The crow's-nest was empty!
"Betrayed," cried Ralph, clapping his hand to his forehead. A moment later two soft-boiled eggs devastated the snowy whiteness of the Seamaid's deck.
Despite their precautions, Lady Margaret had been spirited away during the night. As soon as he had recovered from the shock of the discovery, Ralph ran to Lord Tamerton and acquainted him with the terrible news. There was a period of agonised and fruitless discussion.
"Wait! I have an idea," exclaimed Ralph presently. He pressed an electric bell, and a steward appeared almost simultaneously. ”

“ Soon a slim white boat came gliding up to the prow of the Seamaid. Ralph Wonderson, a tall athletic figure in his immaculate flannels and straw boater, poised himself on the gunwale, gathered himself for a spring, and leaped with the agility of a cat to the bowsprit of the yacht. Sliding rapidly down this, he nodded easily to Lord Tamerton and clasped the beautiful figure of Lady Margaret in his arms. ”

“ I told Celia; "she is obviously determined. Perhaps it means more than we think to her to have that cup upside-down. Its beauty, the memories it brings back, the symbolism of it, these things touch some hidden spring.... Still I am master in my own house." And I turned the cup round again....
Another month passed and I could bear it no longer. Yesterday I made up my mind. I would speak to Jane myself. I turned my First Prize the right way up, and then looked for Celia.
"Celia," I said firmly, "where is Jane?"
"She's gone out," said Celia softly. "Her—her man goes off to-day." ”

“ Sarcasm, directed into the blue in the hope of hitting the person you want, may not be effective, but it does relieve the feelings. I had a thoroughly sarcastic morning all to myself. My deadly irony took the form of turning everything in the library upside-down. The cup was in position already; I turned up two pewter mugs (third prizes in Consolation Races) , the flower bowls, the cigarette box, the lamp, a stool, half-a-dozen pictures, two photographs and the mahogany clock. They all stood on their heads and sneered at Jane. "Why don't you do the thing properly while you're about it?" ”

“ When we think or speak of Belgium our faces glow, and we are all resolved, should the need arise, to do as Belgium has done, and to do it in the same resolute and unconquerable spirit. In the meantime we rush for the newspapers with a constantly increasing eagerness. At about 11 A.M. the whole of Totland Bay is filled with people reading their papers in the open air. Everybody bumps into everybody else, but nobody minds. ”

“ It was difficult to explain why I minded; because, after all, to fill a pipe, light it and sit down to work every morning is very little less trouble than to turn a cup round, fill a pipe, light it and sit down to work every morning. Anything regular soon gets taken for granted. And yet I was annoyed. I think it was the silliness of standing a First Prize upside down which annoyed me. That and the apparent difficulty of getting into communication with Jane about it. ”

“ It is impossible to write properly when looking somewhere else. What we do is to stop and slew our necks round, and then take a fresh dip in the ink. Well, slewing my neck round as I stop writing, I see my precious cup standing on its shelf, and ... horror! It is standing upside down!
This comes as a surprise to you, but it is no surprise to me. The thing has been going on for months. It is months ago that I first spoke to Celia about it.
"It's Jane," she said. "She always puts it like that when she's been dusting." ”

“ Ralph and Lord Tamerton bent their heads over the card.
"See," said the former. "It is as I hoped. Among the entries for the Island Cup we have the Watersnake, owner Sir Ernest Scrivener. He will sail her himself, that is certain. It is equally certain that he has Madge on board. If I know anything of him he will not let her out of his sight. Fred, by yonder centreboard I swear that before the race is over we will win her back."
Bang! It was the signal for the competitors to line up for the great race for the world-famous Island Cup. ”

“ I went back to William and sat down. "The upshot of it is, William," I said, "that I can't go. You had better consider pretty carefully what you're doing. I don't think the Moratorium was intended to work in this sort of way. I've got to report myself at the War Office, and I can't go. You may think you're acting as a good citizen should. You may not be hoarding gold or hoarding food, but you are hoarding me." ”

“ Even war has its humours. "In the midst of perfect peace the enemy surprises us," is a sentence from a proclamation not by the King of the Belgians but by the German Kaiser.
Wilhelm II. is said to be extremely annoyed in his capacity as a British Admiral that he is not being kept fully informed as to the movements of our Fleet.
The danger, of course, of a fondness for a place in the sun is that one may get burnt.
The coming generation would certainly seem to be all right. Even children are taking part in the fray. ”

“ Cynthia Stockley has the writing quality in her; she can both see and feel; she can do man-talk with a plausibility beyond the reach of most of her sex; and she works with a refreshing dash and freedom. ”

“ Stevenson, one can only suppose, speaks of life as he finds it. There are really two stories, that of Beatrice Barrington, the faithless wife of Sir Philip, and the dreary mockery of life up at The Court, with its hatreds and subterfuges, its crippled master, frightened children and spying servants. ”

“ Possibly she had been at sea for a long time and knew nothing of the war. How she must have marvelled at this strange and dreadful welcome from the Isle of Wight. We went to our beds that night with a feeling of perfect security.
On land, too, we have had our excitements. Yesterday afternoon, when the heather-clad slopes of Headon Hill were crowded with picnickers, there was a sudden alarm of spies. Some men, reported to have been conversing in German, were said to have been peering into cracks in the ground and otherwise behaving in a most suspicious manner. ”

“ There are the usual Irish peasantry and farmers who worship the horse for pecuniary and sentimental reasons, as the Israelites worshipped the golden calf; the usual hunting people, who either ride straight and are grimly sarcastic or talk very big and go for the gates; and the usual English visitors, who astound by their guilelessness and simplicity when confronted by aboriginal horse-copers and native bogs and stone-walls. ”

“ Amid the shouts of the children they spread about the heather in their hunt, but nothing came of it, for the "spies," though they were caught, turned out to be some Italians resident in Totland Bay and fervently British in their sympathies.
I mentioned last week that we had a children's maid, a German, in our household. Since then, in obedience to the Act, she has been registered as an "alien enemy." I took her by train to Newport for that purpose. On arriving at the station I hailed a fly. "Where to, Sir?" said the driver. ”

“ Nuts being a prime staple of the votaries of this cult, a person who cannot do anything "for nuts" means, by implication, a carnivorous savage who is incapable of progress. Lastly, there remains the ingenious solution that the phrase as commonly employed involves a misspelling. It ought to be "four nuts," and playing four nuts was an ancient but simple game, which may be connected with the cognate phrase about knowing or not knowing "how many beans make five." ”

“ Such scattered flowers of speech abound in a book whose very want of construction is perhaps symbolical and a reflection of the charming incoherence of the Irish mind.
A BRAVE MAN. "Large lager, waiter."
It is my painful experience that, when a novelist sets out to write a tale of English country life, the better he is at the job the more sombre is the finished product. Mr. George Stevenson is very good indeed at his job; he has sincerity and power, and a certain austere aloofness that will take him far ”

“ Brick-box, the Irish Guards' pet terrier, has been sent for the present to a dogs' home. In the event of their going abroad the Irish Guards hope to bring back with them a certain other dog who seems to have gone mad.
The British Isles have been defeated at Lawn Tennis, but we really shan't mind so long as we win the war. ”

“ Despatch from Pomeranian farming district to effect that a Cochin-China hen has pecked at representation of German Eagle in picture-book. At once issued ultimatum to Cochin-China demanding humble and complete apology, otherwise war would be declared. Received immediate reply, stating that as Cochin-China belongs at present to France I may save myself the trouble of a fresh declaration of war. Do so.
Read statement that "heat in neighbourhood of equator surpasses that of any other part of the world." See in this a direct challenge to our sovereignty. We are the hottest stuff in the world. ”

“ You know the kind of speech I mean. It is vastly pleasant and easy to read; but I must decline to believe that any young man could have the amazing fortune to meet fifteen pretty girls who all had the trick of it. ”

“ The work is good enough to make worth while the cleansing of these defects. The author certainly puts into a short story more thought and characterisation than is common in these days of half-hours with even the best authors through the medium of magazine pot-boilers. ”

“ Most earnestly, and with great confidence, he begs his readers to care for those little ones whose fathers and brothers are serving under the Flag for our country's honour and the defence of our homes, or may suffer through loss of work. ”

“ They give a strong impression of fidelity of draftsmanship, though here we know so little that is intimate of the dark continent that we cannot judge how far actual occurrences are based on fact or probability. ”

“ And at the back, very proud for her, Celia and I stood silent, with a something in the throat that had come there suddenly....
And this morning the cup was upside-down again. Well, well, if she likes it that way, that way let it be.
But take warning, O Jane! When your man—here's luck to him!—comes back, then I shall assert myself once more. My cup, "Long Jump, 1739. First Prize," shall stand the right way up; either that or you leave my service. I am determined about this....
Meanwhile we can share the daily paper.
A. A. M.
"Dear Mr. ”

“ At the present moment, fortunately, one does not hear much of the sex war, but sex-pride compels us to draw attention to an account in The Liverpool Echo of a recent agricultural show, from which we learn that "in a class for cows, in which there was a score of entries, Mr. ”