the purpose? But perhaps they have been....

And then we come back to the marvel, to me, of the man's variousness. I
can plead guilty to having written the words of a dozen songs or so in
as many years, but to put two notes of music together is beyond me, and
to sing anything in tune would be an impossibility, even if I had the
assurance to stand up in public for that purpose. Yet Harry Clifton,
who, in the picture on the cover of the song which the gentleman in
Ireland sent me, does not look at all like some brazen lion comiques,
not only could sing acceptably but write good words and good music. I
hope he grew prosperous, although there is some evidence that his native
geniality was also a stumbling-block. Your jolly good fellows so often
are the victims of their jolly goodness. Nor had the palmy days of comic
singing then begun. There were then no L300 a week bribes to lure a
comic singer into _revue_; but the performers, I guess, were none the
worse for receiving a wage more in accordance with true proportion. I
say true proportion, because I shall never feel it right that
music-hall comedians should receive a bigger salary than a Prime
Minister; at least, not until they sing better songs and take a finer
view of life in their "patter" than most of them now do.

Arts of Invasion

All people living in the country are liable to be asked if they do not
know of "some nice little place that would just suit us." "For
week-ends, chiefly"--the inquirer usually adds. "A kind of
_pied-a-terre_, you know"--the inquirer always adds.

Cautious, self-protective people answer no. Foolish, gregarious people
actually try to help.

Addressing that large and growing class, the _pied-a-terre_ hunters, not
as a potential neighbour, but as a mere counsellor and very platonic
friend, I would say that I have recently discovered two ways of
acquiring country places, both of which, although no doubt neither is
infallible, have from time to time succeeded.

It was at the end of a fruitless day on the same quest that I hit upon
the first. After tramping many miles in vain, I was fortunate in getting
a fly at the village inn to drive me to the nearest station. I don't
say I had seen nothing I liked, but nothing that was empty. As a matter
of fact, I had seen one very charming place, but every window had a
curtain in it and the chimneys were sending up their confounded smoke.
In other words, it was, to use one of the most offensive