Various

“ Warre Cornish has elected to arrange his views on religion, art, literature, politics and the questions of the day, sometimes putting them into the mouths of his characters and sometimes into the note-book of the afore-mentioned Henry Savile, a leisured cripple whose disquisitions on letters and on people are, if a trifle rambling, at any rate delightfully critical and much more interesting and profound than certain others which flow periodically from the windows of cloistered retreats. ”

“ One way and another you get to know things about them."
"They must have a lot of time for thinking," said Celia, regarding my limpet with her head on one side. "Tell me, how do they know that there are no men in Mars?"
I sat up with a sigh.
"Celia, you do dodge about so. I have barely brought together and classified my array of facts about things in this world, when you've dashed up to another one. What is the connection between Mars and limpets? If there are any limpets in Mars they are fresh-water ones. ”

“ Celia has a beautiful idea that I can explain everything to her. I suppose I must have explained a stymie or a no-ball very cleverly once.
"Well," I said, "I can tell you what limpets are for now. They're like sheep and cows and horses and pheasants and—and any other animal. They're just for us. At least so the wise people say."
"But we don't eat limpets." ”

“ Again, Russian railway porters are in the habit of shouting the names of stations, not only in a loud voice, but with scrupulously clear articulation. Do not rashly abandon your career on the railway on the off-chance of a vocal Bonanza. Remember the words of the poet:—
O, ever since the world began,
There never was and never can
Be such a very useful man
As the railway porter!
My voice is of good compass and volume, but it is lacking in the "rich fruity tone" which, according to popular novelists, is indispensable to the exertion of a magnetic influence on the hearer. ”

“ I think I am a tenor, but after taking lessons continuously for six years from sixteen different masters I am still in doubt, and what is more, I am not quite certain whether I want to be. Did not somebody once say that a tenor was not a man but a disease? I am a healthy normal subject, and recently won the lawn-tennis singles at our local tournament. ”

“ He would not ask me why I had inveigled his beautiful black cat on to my poisonous premises. No, we should talk together reasonably, amicably, and as man to man. Mr. Trumpington would promise to do all he could to give his cat pleasant, cheerful evenings at home, and I should agree that it was very hard to prevent a young cat from wanting to see a bit of life. [Pg 149] "Cats," we should say, nodding our heads wisely, "will be cats."
And then from cats we should pass on to dogs, to sport, to politics, to business, to heaven knows what. ”

“ Trumpington, looking through the hollyhock peepholes, the buds of which rapidly began to turn from a lightish pink to deep rose.
It is always a more dignified policy to ignore a man in a temper, so it was not until about ten minutes had elapsed, and silence reigned, that I crawled painfully away into safety. ”

“ Pattie may improve so much with the constant practice that she will be able to return my service; in which case it will settle the game, for wherever we put the ball Wilbrooke is bound to get hold of it and drive or smash it so that we can't return it.
(2) I may serve Pattie a double-fault. But I am now in splendid training; my right biceps is like a cricket-ball, and I feel that I could serve all day without tiring. ”

“ Every August Bank Holiday we have a short Mixed Open Tournament at our lawn-tennis club. It's quite a small, homely affair, but as our President, Sir Benjamin Boogles, always offers two valuable prizes (hall-marked) , every member who can possibly enter does so. Each year hitherto the Tournament has been finished in the one day; but this year it is not finished yet—in fact, in one instance the first game of the first set is still undecided, and the winners in the other sets are anxiously awaiting the result in order that the second round may proceed before the end of the season. ”

“ For the most part the sun has been shining from a blue sky on a blue and brilliant sea; men, women and children have been swimming and splashing joyfully in a most mixed manner, and the whole landscape has had its usual holiday air. ”

“ High stand-up collars are certainly to be avoided, as they constrict the Adam's apple and muffle the tone of the voice. A soft turn-down collar, such as those supplied by Pope Bros., is greatly to be preferred and imparts a romantic and semi-Byronic appearance highly desirable in an artist.
I am a railway porter with a good bass voice, and having read that the great Russian singer who has been appearing at Drury Lane began life in that position and is now paid at the rate of £400 a night, I am anxious to follow his example, if I can obtain adequate guarantees of success.—Clapham Junction. ”

“ My silence since then was lulling it into a false security, and in another two minutes I hoped to get a move on it again.
"Do you know," said Celia with a puzzled look on her face, "sometimes I think I'm quite an ordinary person after all."
"You aren't a little bit," I said lazily; "you're just like nobody else in the world."
"Well, of course, you had to say that."
"No, I hadn't. Lots of husbands would merely have yawned." I felt one coming and stopped it just in time. Waiting for limpets to go to sleep is drowsy work. "But why are you so morbid about yourself suddenly?" ”

“ Wilbrooke, our crack player, who can easily give most of us forty and a bonus of five games in the set, and still beat us, recently became engaged to Pattie Blobson, who is a hopeless rabbit at the game, this being her first season. Not unnaturally she insisted on his entering the Tournament with her. I always enter with Joan, and though we are neither of us exactly rabbits it would be rather hard to find a zoological term that would fittingly describe our standard of play. ”

“ Celia dropped into silence. Her next question showed that she had left the pool for a moment.
"Are there any people in Mars?" she asked.
"People down here say that there aren't. A man told me the other day that he knew this for a fact. On the other hand, people in Mars know for a fact that there isn't anybody on the Earth. Probably they are both wrong."
"I should like to know a lot about things," sighed Celia. "Do you know anything about limpets?" ”

“ The news spread rapidly, and for a time we were the most unpopular quartet in the Club; but by the time we had reached our eighty-third deuce, and luncheon (the gift of Lady Boggles) was served, hunger and anger began to abate simultaneously, and the situation was discussed with humour to the exclusion of all other topics. At the end of the morning's play I was certainly feeling a trifle done up, but it says much for the recuperative properties of chicken galantine and junket that after the interval I felt quite invigorated and good for service ad infinitum. ”

“ By people who have made a speciality of them. For one who has preferred to amass general knowledge rather than to specialize it is considered enough to know that they stick like billy-o."
"You haven't specialized in anything, have you?"
"Only in wives."
Celia smiled and went on, "How do you make a speciality of limpets?"
"Well, I suppose you—er—study them. You sit down and—and watch them. Probably after dark they get up and do something. And of course, in any case, you can always dissect one and see what he's had for breakfast. ”

“ Still there were left at liberty enough to maim cattle and shoot at landlords. If Germany had happened to step in at that epoch it would have been a perilous time for England. The House of Commons after many years' hesitation has offered to bestow Home Rule upon Ireland and this is Ireland's first articulate response. Her Nationalists range themselves with Ulster by the side of Great Britain threatened by a foreign foe."
Business done.—Foreign Secretary, amid prolonged cheers, announces that England means to stand by France in the coming war, and will fulfil her Treaty obligations to Belgium. ”

“ Even Frederick, the pious, as contrasted with the flippant, nephew of aunt Quilter—Frederick, with his futile institute for people who want none of it, his blind pedantry, and his actual dishonesty in what he considers a worthy cause—even he is punished no further than his actual deserving. ”

“ We have felt and are feeling the imminence of war, and, though our judgments are firm and patriotic and prepared for sacrifice, our minds are clouded with a heavy anxiety. Our newspapers arrive at about 11 o'clock, and at that hour there is a concentrated rush to the book-shop. ”

“ But as we placed them side by side we could almost hear them sigh after their long separation—though whether with satisfaction or annoyance who shall say? Volumes, may be, can get as tired of their companions as human beings can. ”

“ The London General Omnibus Company is appointing one lady and a number of men to act as interpreters and guides. Their costumes, we should say, will attract a considerable amount of attention, for the lady, we are told, will wear a braided frock coat and black skirt and straw-topped peak hat, while the men will work in double shifts. ”

“ She rose to go.
"And if," said the station-master, showing her out, "if a train should arrive at 6.30 from London to-morrow and disgorge this husband of yours, won't you do us all a little kindness? Won't you make a point of telling the porter, all the porters, foremen porters, ticket collectors, inspectors, casual postmen and even myself? You have no idea what a change it would be for us to hear a lady saying, 'My husband ought to have come by this train, and he has!'"
FINANCIAL STRINGENCY AT THE SEASIDE ”

“ The Jam Queen is to a large extent what would be called in drama a one-part affair. There are plenty of other characters, many of them drawn with much unforced skill, but the personality of the protagonist, the Jam Queen herself, overshadows the rest. Mrs. Quilter is an abiding joy. There have been plutocratic elderly women, uneducated but agreeable, in a hundred novels before this ”

“ Setting of scene worthy of drama which finds no full parallel in world's history. Keen eyes accustomed to study potentialities of nations discerned in the gathering a new portentous fact. A week ago to-day political parties in House of Commons preserved customary attitude of hostility. Across the floor they snapped at each other distrust and dislike. Long-brooding revolt of armed forces in Ireland had leaped into flame. ”

“ Synopsis of Preceding Instalment:—Ralph Wonderson, the famous athlete, while on a mountaineering expedition in Switzerland, encounters Lady Margaret Tamerton, whom he has not seen since childhood. With her are her brother, Lord Tamerton; her cousin, Sir Ernest Scrivener; and three Swiss guides. They combine to make an ascent of the Wetterhorn under Ralph's leadership. Early in the climb Ralph discovers that Sir Ernest Scrivener is none other than his own mortal foe, Marmaduke Moorsdyke. A perilous traverse of a glacier has to be undertaken. ”

“ Operatic singers grow stout because they drink stout; also because much singing tends to expand the larynx, pharynx and thorax, as well as the basilico-thaumaturgic cavities of the medulla oblongata. (4) There is nothing criminal in preferring the cornet to any other wind instrument. Many pious people prefer Marie Corelli to Milton.
THE DOUBLE LIFE.
When Araminta said that I must speak to the man next door about his black cat, I was greatly perturbed. ”

“ I am sure the gallant officer will display as much vigour in the battering of his country's foes as he has shown in the splitting of the King's infinitives. Going for my newspaper this morning I saw at a distance an elderly gentleman of a serious aspect revolving steadily round and round a tall iron post. It was not until I came closer that I realised the meaning of his strange gyrations. The proclamation had been inconsiderately pasted round the post and he was endeavouring to read it. ”

“ All books are the same to her in that they contain type on which the eye can fasten to the detriment of her labour. In every room I have stumbled over her long black legs as she thus abused her trust. ”

“ Titterton has the Du Maurier manner, but his jocular skittishness, aided by asterisks, exclamation marks and suspensive dots, has curiously little behind it. It is not enough to-day to paint the gay impropriety of models and the devil-may-care penury of lighthearted artists. ”

“ Hay, while alive to existing faults, loves everything and everybody. In return most people will be prepared to love him. And he deserves to be loved for the sake of a book which has a happy beginning, a happy middle and a happy end, together with lots of incidental laughter.
"There is a teacup storm in the Close, I hear. The Dean altered the time of closing the Minster for summer cleaning or some such trifle, and did not consult the Chapter, which had already made its holiday arrangements." ”

“ A boy-scout called at the house and produced an official paper asking for the names and addresses of any aliens who might be residing in the house. We have one such alien, a German maid for the children, a most unwarlike and inoffensive alien. ”

“ He has some delightful ideas, which, happily, he does not overwork: a case in point is the brief but rapid career of Uncle Joseph, who employs the most criminal methods in order to attain the most charitable ends. ”

“ All cross in safety except Sir Ernest, who makes imprudent remark which causes a line of overhanging seracs to collapse upon him and sweep him down the glacier. Ralph dives unhesitatingly to the rescue of his deadliest foe. ”

“ But it is easy to overdo the plummy tone, which is apt to become cloying.
Kindly explain the following terms taken from an article on Scriabine which recently appeared in a leading daily paper: Psychical conjunctivitis; Katzenjammer; Cephalœdematous; Hokusai; Asininity. What is the difference between the portamento and "scooping"? Why do opera singers show such a marked tendency to embonpoint? Am I wrong in preferring the cornet to any other wind instrument?—Anxious Aspirant. ”

“ Trumpington will feel greatly obliged if Mr. Brown will prevent his black cat from constantly straying upon his, Mr. Trumpington's, flower-beds. He also requests that when Mr. Brown wishes to persecute his black cat he should not do so when the animal is sitting on Mr. Trumpington's wall, as this practice is attended with considerable risk to Mr. Trumpington's life and limbs."
I sat down and wrote a reply.
"Mr. Brown," I said, "greatly regrets that a golf-ball playfully thrown at Mr. Trumpington's black cat whilst sitting on his, Mr. ”

“ In the meantime a good deal of patriotic self-denial is going on amongst the juvenile population. A friend of mine, aged seven, hearing the talk about all the coming privations, has decided to remove chocolates, buns and sponge-cakes from his dietary, and several young ladies have agreed to take milk instead of cream with their breakfast porridge. ”