the fire and have done with it
struggling with as odd a speculation as to its possible contents, and as
to the reason why the infuriated woman should have flung a bit of paper
from her with such vehemence. As might be expected, it was the latter
feeling that conquered in the end, and yet it was with something like
repugnance that he at last took the paper and unrolled it, and laid it
out before him. It was a piece of common dirty paper, to all appearance
torn out of a cheap exercise-book, and in the middle were a few lines
written in a queer cramped hand. Salisbury bent his head and stared
eagerly at it for a moment, drawing a long breath, and then fell back in
his chair gazing blankly before him, till at last with a sudden
revulsion he burst into a peal of laughter, so long and loud and
uproarious that the landlady's baby on the floor below awoke from sleep
and echoed his mirth with hideous yells. But he laughed again and again,
and took the paper up to read a second time what seemed such meaningless
nonsense.

'Q. has had to go and see his friends in Paris,' it began. 'Traverse
Handle S. "Once around the grass, and twice around the lass, and
thrice around the maple tree."'

Salisbury took up the paper and crumpled it as the angry woman had done,
and aimed it at the fire. He did not throw it there, however, but
tossed it carelessly into the well of the desk, and laughed again. The
sheer folly of the thing offended him, and he was ashamed of his own
eager speculation, as one who pores over the high-sounding announcements
in the agony column of the daily paper, and finds nothing but
advertisement and triviality. He walked to the window, and stared out at
the languid morning life of his quarter; the maids in slatternly print
dresses washing door-steps, the fish-monger and the butcher on their
rounds, and the tradesmen standing at the doors of their small shops,
drooping for lack of trade and excitement. In the distance a blue haze
gave some grandeur to the prospect, but the view as a whole was
depressing, and would only have interested a student of the life of
London, who finds something rare and choice in its very aspect.
Salisbury turned away in disgust, and settled himself in the easy-chair,
upholstered in a bright shade of green, and decked with yellow gimp,
which was the pride and attraction of the apartments. Here he composed
himself to his morning's occupation--the perusal of a novel that dealt
with s