cal music only. Personally, I
haven't reached that standard of taste yet; I still have Fox Trot
moods. I also want a player-piano--an Angelus, if possible.

Now for the library. I shall leave the choice of periodicals to the
community, and I expect to find them select a list of this
kind:--_Scout, Boy's Own Paper, Girl's Own Paper, Popular Mechanics, My
Magazine, Punch, Chips, Comic Cuts, Tit-Bits, Answers, Strand, Sketch,
Sphere_. It will be interesting to watch the career of _Chips_; I will
not be surprised if the community tires of _Chips_ in a month.

Our book library will be stocked from the children's homes, I fancy.
Each child will bring his or her favourite novel, and gladly hand it
round. I shall certainly hand on my own fiction library:--Conan Doyle,
Wells, Jack London, Rider Haggard, Cutcliffe Hyne, Guy Boothby, Barrie,
O. Henry, Leacock, Jacobs, Leonard Merrick, Seton Merriman, Stanley
Weyman, and a host of others.

No, this won't do! How can I furnish before my self-governing school
decides what furniture it will have? The children may demand desks and
time-tables, but I do not think it likely. Anyhow, I am counting my
chickens before they are hatched.

XIV.

I finish this book in the place where I began it, in Forfarshire, but
not in Tarbonny Village. Hustling Herbert Jenkins sent me the galley
proofs this morning with an urgent demand that I should return them at
once. I do dislike publishers. At first I took them at their own
valuation: I believed what they said.

"Machines waiting," Jenkins would wire. "Send MS. at once."

And I, simple I, would sit up late correcting proofs. I know better
now. I know that Jenkins always divides time by 20. His "at once"
means that twenty days hence he will say to his Secretary: "That new
book of Neill's . . . has it gone to the printer yet?" And his
Secretary will 'phone down to the office secretary and say: "You've got
to send Neill's new book to the printer." Then this lady will order
the office-boy to take the MS. to the printer . . . and I bet the
little devil reads _Deadwood Dick on the Boomerang Prairie_ as he
crawls to the printer's office with my masterpiece under his arm.

Hence, understanding Jenkins, I tossed the proofs into a corner this
morning, and went out to continue the game of ring quoits that Nellie
and I had to give up as darkness fell last night. Nellie is a Dundee
lassie of thirteen and she is spending her holidays