herbage of it.  “The Rivers of the East Coast; the Tweed, the Tyne, the Wear, the Tees, the Humber”—­why is that, for instance, sticking up among my ferns and wild flowers?  It is not only useless but misleading, for the Humber is not another Tweed.  I sometimes fancy the world may be mad—­yet that seems egotistical.  The fact remains that for the greater part of my young life Mr. Sandsome got an appetite upon us from nine till twelve, and digested his dinner, at first placidly and then with petulance, from two until five—­and we thirty odd boys were sent by our twenty odd parents to act as a sort of chorus to his physiology.  And he was fed (as I judge) more than sufficiently, clothed, sheltered, and esteemed on account of this relation.  I think, after all, there must have been something in that schooling.  I can’t believe the world mad.  And I have forgotten it—­or as good as forgotten it—­all!  At times I feel a wild impulse to hunt up all those chintz-covered books, and brush up my dates and paradigms, before it is too late.

THE POET AND THE EMPORIUM

“I am beginning life,” he said, with a sigh.  “Great Heavens!  I have spent a day—­a day!—­in a shop.  Three bedroom suites and a sideboard are among the unanticipated pledges of our affection.  Have you lithia?  For a man of twelve limited editions this has been a terrible day.”

I saw to his creature comforts.  His tie was hanging outside his waistcoat, and his complexion was like white pasteboard that has got wet.  “Courage,” said I.  “It will not occur again——­”

“It will,” said he.  “We have to get there again tomorrow.  We have—­what is it?—­carpets, curtains——­”

He produced his tablets.  I was amazed.  Those receptacles of choice thoughts!

“The amber sunlight splashing through the leaky—­leafy interlacing green,” he read.  “No!—­that’s not it.  Ah, here!  Curtains!  Drawing-room—­not to cost more than thirty shillings!  And there’s all the Kitchen Hardware! (Thanks.) Dining-room chairs—­query—­rush bottoms?  What’s this?  G.L.I.S.—­ah!  “Glistering thro’ deeps of glaucophane”—­that’s nothing.  Mem. to see can we afford Indian needlework chairs—­57s. 6d.?  It’s dreadful, Bellows!”

He helped himself to a cigarette.

“Find the salesman pleasant?” said I.

“Delightful.  Assumed I was a spendthrift millionaire at first.  Produced in an off-hand way an eighty-guinea bedroom suite—­we’re trying to do the entire business, you know, on about two hundred pounds.  Well—­that’s ten editions, you know.  Came down, with evidently dwindling respect, to things that were still ruinously expensive.  I told him we wanted an idyll—­love in a cottage, and all that kind of thing.  He brushed that on one side, said idols were upstairs in the Japanese Department, and that perhaps we might do with a servant’s set of bedroom furniture.  Do with a set!  He was a gloomy man with (I should