thought and compression, I can
tell you--but I copy them out for the photographer too."

"Is that why they're always in the same handwriting?" I asked.

"Yes, that's it," he said. "It's mine."

"Then you can tell me something I have always wanted to know," I said. "I
have noticed that when a letter written, say, by the Duke of Pemmican is
thrown on the screen it is always signed 'Duke of Pemmican.' Why is that?
In real life wouldn't he sign it 'Pemmican'?"

"He might," said my companion. "I don't know; but what I do know is that
the cinema public expects a duke to call himself a duke; and we pride
ourselves on giving them what they want."

"If you were making KING GEORGE write a letter," I said, "would he sign
himself 'KING GEORGE'?"

"Certainly," he replied. "Why not? That's a good idea, anyway. A film with
a letter from the KING in it would go. As it is, his only place in a cinema
has been to indicate--by the appearance of his portrait on the screen--that
the show is over. It isn't fair that he should come to be looked upon as a
spoil-sport like that. It has a bad effect on the young. Many thanks for
your suggestion. I'll give him a show with a letter."

* * * * *

A QUESTION OF COURTESY.

"Permit me, Sir, to pass you the potatoes."

"After you," I inclined.

My fellow-passenger helped himself, shrugging his eyebrows. It was a
provocative shrug--a shrug I could not leave at that.

"You shrug your eyebrows," I challenged.

"A thousand pardons," he answered; "but one never escapes it."

He courted interrogation. "What is it that one never escapes?" I asked.

"The elaborate unselfishness of the age," he replied a little petulantly.
"I had two friends who starved to death of it."

"Indeed!" I offered him the salt.

"Observe," said my fellow-passenger, "that when you offer me the salt I
accept it. Why should I deprive you of one of the little complacencies of
unselfishness? You see, my dear Sir, either you are to feel smug all over,
or I am. Now, if I take the salt--so--I perform a true act of courtesy;
but, if I postpone the salt, saying 'After you,' I at once enter into the
lists, jousting with you for the prize of self-satisfaction. With my two
friends it was, if I remember, a matter of Lancashire relish. It appears to
me one of the ironies of Fate that they should have starved to death for
want of a sauce. I am reminded of an epicure who starved to death for want
of se