J. JOB, _Proprietor_.

Standing there beneath the skylight I turned its pages over, wondering
vaguely how the visitors' book of a small provincial hotel had found its
way into that drawer. It contained the usual assortment of conventional
praise and vulgar jocosity:--

_Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Smith of Huddersfield,
cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Job's ham and
eggs.--September 15, 1881_.

_Arrived wet through after a 15-mile tramp
along the coast; but thanks to Mr. and Mrs.
Job were soon steaming over a comfortable
fire.--John and Annie Watson, March, 1882._

Note appended by a humorist:

_Then you sat on the hob, I suppose._

There was the politely patronising entry:

_Being accustomed to Wolverhampton, I am
greatly pleased with this coast.--F. B. W._

The poetical effusion:

_Majestic spot! Say, doth the sun in heaven
Behold aught to equal thee, wave-washed
Penleven?_ etc.

Lighter verse:

_Here I came to take my ease,
Agreeably disappointed to find no fl--
Mrs. Job, your bread and butter
Is quite too utterly, utterly utter!_

_J. Harper, June 3rd, 1883._

The contemplative man's ejaculation:

_It is impossible, on viewing these Cyclopean cliffs,
to repress the thought, How great is Nature,
how little Man!_
(A note: _So it is, old chap!_ and a reproof
in another hand: _Shut up! can't you see
he's suffering?)_

The last entry was a brief one:

_J. MacGuire, Liverpool. September 2nd, 1886._

Twilight forced me to close the book and put it back in its place.
As I did so, I glanced up involuntarily towards the skylight, as if I
half expected to find a pair of eyes staring down on me. Yet the book
contained nothing but these mere trivialities. Whatever my
apprehension, I was (as "J. Harper" would have said) "agreeably
disappointed." I climbed on deck again, relocked the hatch, replaced
the tarpaulins, jumped into the boat and rowed homewards. Though the
tide favoured me, it was dark before I reached Mr. Dewy's quay-door.
Having, with some difficulty, found the frape, I made the boat fast.
I groped my way across his back premises and out into the gaslit street;
and so to the Ship Inn, a fair dinner, and a sound night's sleep.

At ten o'clock next morning I called on Messrs. Dewy and Moss.
Again Mr. Dewy received me, and again he ap