AMERICAN INVASION I CAN MAKE
THEM FEEL AT HOME."]

* * * * *

A NOTE ON CHESTERFIELDS.

In the Soviet Republic of Russia, I am told, no one can lay claim to the
title of worker unless his hands are hardened and roughened by toil, and
LENIN and TROTSKY have to take their turns at the rack, like the commonest
executioner. In England we are not nearly so particular about the manual
test, and, besides feeling quite kindly disposed towards professional
footballers, tea-tasters and the men who stand on Cornish cliffs and shout
when they see the pilchard shoals come in, we still give a certain amount
of credit to mere brain-work as well.

There is, however, a poisonous idea prevalent, especially amongst the women
of this country, that a fellow is not working with his brain unless he is
walking rapidly up and down the room with wrinkles on his forehead, or
sitting on a hard chair at a table with a file of papers in front of him.
But there is no rule of this sort about the birth of great and beautiful
ideas in the human brain. It is all a matter of individual taste and habit.
I know a man, a poet, who thinks best on the Underground Railway, and that
is the reason why he said the other day, "Give me to gaze once more on the
blue hills," to the girl in the booking-office, when what he really wanted
was a ticket (of a light heliotrope colour) to St. James's Park. Lord
BYRON, on the other hand, composed a sorrowful ditty on the decadence of
the Isles of Greece whilst shaving; but the invention of the safety-razor
and the energetic action of M. VENIZELOS will most likely render it
unnecessary for anyone to repeat such a performance. As for the people who
have a sudden bright idea whilst they are dressing for dinner, they may be
dismissed at once, for they nearly always go to bed by mistake and, when
they wake up again extremely hungry, they have forgotten what it was.

Most experts are really agreed that a recumbent or semi-recumbent position
is the best for creative thought, and another friend of mine, also a maker
of verses, has patented the very ingenious device of a pair of stirrups
just under the mantelshelf, so that, when he sits back in his armchair, he
can manage his Pegasus without having his feet continually slipping off the
marble surface into the fender.

Much may be said too for a seat in a first-class railway carriage, when you
have the compartment all to yourself and the train is go