; "and what do you see to-day? There, look!"

I glanced up at his bidding, and a costly motor was gliding smoothly by.
It weighed several tons, and its tyres were like dropsical life-belts.
On its shining door was a crest. The chauffeur was kept warm by costly
furs. Inside was an elderly lady, and in her arms was a russet
Pekingese.

"So you see what went when I went," the pug said, after a noisy pause.
"It wasn't only pugs that went; it was carriages-and-pairs, and the
sound of eight hoofs all at once, and footmen with folded arms. We
passed out together. Exeunt pugs. Enter Peeks and Petrol. And now we are
out in the cold."

I sympathized with him. "You must transfer your affection to another
class, that's all," I said. "If the nobs have gone back on you, there
are still a great many pug-lovers left."

"No," he said, "that's no good; we want chicken. We must have it.
Without it, we had better become extinct." He wept with the sound of a
number of syphons all leaking together, and waddled away.

At this moment the man who has charge of the chairs came up for my
money. I gave the penny.

"I'm afraid I must charge you twopence," the man said.

I asked him why.

"For the dog," he said. "When they talks we has to make a charge for
them."

"But it wasn't mine," I assured him. "It was a total stranger."

"Come now," he said; and to save trouble I paid him.

But how like a pug!

II. THE NEW BOOK OF BEAUTY

A hundred years ago the Books of Beauty had line engravings by Charles
Heath, and long-necked, ringleted ladies looked wistfully or simperingly
at you. I have several examples: _Caskets_, _Albums_, _Keepsakes_. The
new Book of Beauty has a very different title. It is called _The
Pekingese_, and is the revised edition for 1914.

The book is different in other ways too. The steel engravers having long
since all died of starvation, here are photographs only, in large
numbers, and (strange innovation!) there are more of gentlemen than of
ladies. For this preponderance there is a good commercial reason, as any
student of the work will quickly discover, for we are now entering a
sphere of life where the beauty of the sterner sex (if so severe a word
can be applied to such sublimation of everything that is soft and
voluptuous and endearing) is more considered than that of the other.
Beautiful ladies are here in some profusion, but the first place is for
beautiful and guinea-earning gentlemen.

In the old Books