h 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; blue sky (if you have enough imagination) and
still bluer sea; picturesque villas, curious effects of rocks, distant
backgrounds of mountain ... and on the last page the clever kindly face
of Simpson.

The whole affair will probably bore you to tears.

But with Myra and me the case of course is different. We find these
things, as Simpson said, very jolly to look back on.

A. A. M.

* * * * *

[Illustration: [_Extract from Sentries' Orders_: "In case of man
overboard, will throw the ship's life-buoy overboard, and report to the
ship's officer on the bridge. In case of fire will at once report it
quietly to the ship's officer on the bridge."]

_Officer of the Watch (on transport)._ "WHAT DO YOU DO IN CASE OF FIRE?"

_Nervous Sentry._ "THROW MESELF OVERBOARD AN' REPORT AT ONCE TO THE
BLOKE ON THE BALCONY."]

* * * * *

IN SEARCH OF PETER.

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.

Peter is the most precious and the most coveted of my possessions. He is
coveted, or was, chiefly by Mrs. Martell, who fell in love with his name
and his deep romantic eyes. Apart from these I can see nothing
remarkable in him. He is certainly the most irresponsible hound that
ever sat down in front of a motor-car to attend to his personal
cleanliness, but still I should not like to part with him. "We must have
a Peter," was the text of Mrs. Martell's domestic monologues, and of
late, before the great disillusionment--that is, after hinting
delicately to me that she would like best of all to have _the_
Peter--she took to sallying forth, armed with the name, into the
purlieus of dog-fanciers to find a criminal that would fit the
punishment.

I was not altogether surprised, therefore,