hed
finger-tips with something more generously pure and happy than I had met
for years. Through the hush of lights the sylvan music stole, and
Marjorie Carpenter stole with it, and every step of her whispered of
April and May.

The curtain fell. I was jerked back to common things. But I was in no
mood for them. The house applauded. It thought it was applauding
Marjorie Carpenter for her skill as a dancer. It was really worshipping
something greater--that elusive quality which she had momentarily
snatched from nothing and presented to them: the eternal charm and
mystery of Childhood.

A CHINESE NIGHT

LIMEHOUSE

_AT LIMEHOUSE_

_Yellow man, yellow man, where have you been?
Down the Pacific, where wonders are seen.
Up the Pacific, so glamorous and gay,
Where night is of blue, and of silver the day._

_Yellow man, yellow man, what did you there?
I loved twenty maids who were loving and fair.
Their cheeks were of velvet, their kisses were fire,
I looked at them boldly and had my desire._

_Yellow man, yellow man, what do you know?
That living is lovely wherever I go;
And lovelier, I say, since when soft winds have passed
The tides will race over my bosom at last._

_Yellow man, yellow man, why do you sigh?
For flowers that are sweet, and for flowers that die.
For days in fair waters and nights in strange lands.
For faces forgotten and little lost hands._

A CHINESE NIGHT

LIMEHOUSE

It was eight o'clock. We had dined in Soho, and conversed amiably with
Italian waiters and French wine-men. There were now many slack hours
before us, and nothing wherewith to tighten them. We stood in the
low-lit gaiety of Old Compton Street, and wondered. We were tired of
halls and revues; the theatres had started work; there was nothing left
but to sit in beer-cellars and listen to dreary bands playing ragtimes
and bilious waltzes.

Now it is a good tip when tired of the West, and, as the phrase goes, at
a loose end, to go East, young man, go East. You will spot a winner
every time, if it is entertainment you seek, by mounting the first
East-bound omnibus that passes. For the East is eternally fresh, because
it is alive. The West, like all things of fashion, is but a corpse
electrified. They are so tired, these lily-clad ladies and white-fronted
gentlemen, of their bloodless, wine-whipped frivolities. They want to
enjoy thems