onal dinner-table. "It is the strangest story I have heard for
a long time." Just then there was a pause in the general conversation,
and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to make the sign for rising, so
that no more passed with regard to Zaluski.

Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had left a good impression by his
last remark, thought better not to efface it later in the evening by any
other conversation with his hostess. But in the small hours of the
night, when he had finished his bundle of proofs, he took up his notebook
and, strangling his yawns, made two or three brief, pithy notes of the
story Mrs. Selldon had told him, adding a further development which
occurred to him, and wondering to himself whether "Like a Green Bay Tree"
would be a selling title.

After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just, or the
unbroken sleep which goes by that name.

MY SIXTH STAGE

But whispering tongues can poison truth.

COLERIDGE.

London in early September is a somewhat trying place. Mark Shrewsbury
found it less pleasing in reality than in his visions during the dinner-
party at Dulminster. True, his chambers were comfortable, and his type-
writer was as invaluable a machine as ever, and his novel was drawing to
a successful conclusion; but though all these things were calculated to
cheer him, he was nevertheless depressed. Town was dull, the heat was
trying, and he had never in his life found it so difficult to settle down
to work. He began to agree with the Preacher, that "of making many books
there is no end," and that, in spite of his favourite "Remington's
perfected No. 2," novel-writing was a weariness to the flesh. Soon he
drifted into a sort of vague idleness, which was not a good, honest
holiday, but just a lazy waste of time and brains. I was pleased to
observe this, and was not slow to take advantage of it. Had he stayed in
Pump Court he might have forgotten me altogether in his work, but in the
soft luxury of his Club life I found that I had a very fair chance of
being passed on to some one else.

One hot afternoon, on waking from a comfortable nap in the depths of an
armchair at the Club, Shrewsbury was greeted by one of his friends.

"I thought you were in Switzerland, old fellow!" he exclaimed, yawning
and stretching himself.

"Came back yesterday--awfully bad season--confoundedly dull," returned
the other. "Where have you been?"

"Down with Warren near Dulmi