sent to London and was returned
from there; and yet I started to abuse that boy as though he were not
only the Postmaster-General himself but the inventor of red-tape into
the bargain. And all for a piece of carelessness of my own.

And then suddenly I remembered Shanghai and how delightful I was there.
And I shut up instantly, and apologized, and rewrote the message, and
gave the boy a shilling for himself. If one could be delightful in
Shanghai one must be delightful at home too.

And so it is going to be. There is very little fun for me in the future,
and all because of that nice-mannered double in Shanghai whom I must not
disgrace. For it would be horrible if one day a lady told him that she
had overheard some one who had met him in London and found him to be a
bear.

=ON BELLONA'S HEM=

(SECOND SERIES)

ON BELLONA'S HEM

A Revel in Gambogia

There are certain ebullitions of frivolity about which, during the war,
one has felt far from comfortable. To read reports of them, side by side
with the various "grave warnings" which every one has been uttering, is
to be almost too vividly reminded of England's capacity for divided
action. But there are also others; and chief among these I should set
the fancy-dress carnival of munition-workers at which I was privileged
to be present one Saturday night. Here was necessary frivolity, if you
like, for these myriad girls worked like slaves all the week, day and
night, and many of them on Sundays too--and "National filling," as their
particular task is called, is no joke either--and it was splendid to see
them flinging themselves into the fun of this rare careless evening.

Fancy dress being the rule, it was only right and proper that there
should be prizes for the best costumes; and since the lady who shed her
beneficence over this prismatic throng does nothing by halves, she had
called in the assistance of two artists to adjudicate. I will not make
public their names; that would be to overstep the boundaries of decorum
and turn this book into sheer journalism. But I will say that one of
them is equally renowned in Chelsea for his distinguished brushwork and
his wit; and that the other's extravaganzas cheer a million
breakfast-tables daily. How I, who am not an artist, and so little of a
costumier that I did not even wear evening dress, got into this _galere_
is the mystery. I can explain it only by a habit of good fortune, for I
chanced to be in the stu