the
brightest divorce cases that had been tried for many years was robbed
of much of its sparkle by the lachrymose behaviour of a section of the
audience.

"What are we to do?" asked the Prime Minister, whose cook had wept into
all the breakfast dishes and whose nursemaid had gone out, crying
quietly and miserably, to take the children for a walk in the Park.

"There is a time for everything," said the King; "there is a time to
yield. Pass a measure through the two Houses depriving women of the
right to vote, and bring it to me for the Royal assent the day after
to-morrow."

As the Minister withdrew, Hermann the Irascible, who was also nicknamed
the Wise, gave a profound chuckle.

"There are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream,"
he quoted, "but I'm not sure," he added, "that it's not the best way."

THE UNREST-CURE

On the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis was a
solidly wrought travelling-bag, with a carefully written label, on
which was inscribed, "J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near
Slowborough." Immediately below the rack sat the human embodiment of
the label, a solid, sedate individual, sedately dressed, sedately
conversational. Even without his conversation (which was addressed to
a friend seated by his side, and touched chiefly on such topics as the
backwardness of Roman hyacinths and the prevalence of measles at the
Rectory), one could have gauged fairly accurately the temperament and
mental outlook of the travelling bag's owner. But he seemed unwilling
to leave anything to the imagination of a casual observer, and his talk
grew presently personal and introspective.

"I don't know how it is," he told his friend, "I'm not much over forty,
but I seem to have settled down into a deep groove of elderly
middle-age. My sister shows the same tendency. We like everything to
be exactly in its accustomed place; we like things to happen exactly at
their appointed times; we like everything to be usual, orderly,
punctual, methodical, to a hair's breadth, to a minute. It distresses
and upsets us if it is not so. For instance, to take a very trifling
matter, a thrush has built its nest year after year in the catkin-tree
on the lawn; this year, for no obvious reason, it is building in the
ivy on the garden wall. We have said very little about it, but I think
we both feel that the change is unnecessary, and just a little
irritating."

"Perhaps," said th