But the telegram never came.  We woke on Wednesday morning as wakes the murderer on his last day.  We took a dog or two for a walk; we pretended to play a game of croquet.  After lunch we donned the badges of our servitude.  The comfortable, careless, dirty flannels were taken off, and the black coats and stiff white collars put on.  At 3.30 an early tea was ready for us—­ something rather special, a last mockery of holiday. (Dressed crab, I remember, on one occasion, and I travelled with my back to the engine after it—­a position I have never dared to assume since.) Then good-byes, tips, kisses, a last look, and—­the 4.10 was puffing out of the station.  And nothing, nothing had happened.  I can remember thinking in the train how unfair it all was.  Fifty-two weeks in the year, I said to myself, and only fifteen of them spent at home.  A child snatched from his mother at nine, and never again given back to her for more than two months at a time.  “Is this Russia?” I said; and, getting no answer, could only comfort myself with the thought, “This day twelve weeks!”

And once the incredible did happen.  It was through no intervention of Providence; no, it was entirely our own doing.  We got near some measles, and for a fortnight we were kept in quarantine.  I can say truthfully that we never spent a duller two weeks.  There seemed to be nothing to do at all.  The idea that we were working had to be fostered by our remaining shut up in one room most of the day, and within the limits of that room we found very little in the way of amusement.  We were bored extremely.  And always we carried with us the thought of Smith or Robinson taking our place in the Junior House team and making hundreds of runs. ...

Because, of course, we were very happy at school really.  The trouble was that we were so much happier in the holidays.  I have had many glorious moments since I left school, but I have no doubt as to what have been the happiest half-hours in my life.  They were the half-hours on the last day of term before we started home.  We spent them on a lunch of our own ordering.  It was the first decent meal we had had for weeks, and when it was over there were all the holidays before us.  Life may have better half-hours than that to offer, but I have not met them.

Natural Science

It is when Parliament is not sitting that the papers are most interesting to read.  I have found an item of news to-day which would never have been given publicity in the busy times, and it has moved me strangely.  Here it is, backed by the authority of Dr. Chalmers Mitchell:—­

“The caterpillar of the puss-moth, not satisfied with Nature’s provisions for its safety, makes faces at young birds, and is said to alarm them considreably.”