e county of Essex where Ghost met Ghost."

Mr. BERNARD SHAW, interviewed on his doorstep, derided the action of the
Glasgow Corporation. No amount of water, he told our representative,
could have the least effect in making our modern cities less beastly
than they were. For his part, however, he was taking no risks. He had
that morning arranged for the erection of a spiked iron fence twenty
feet high round the (supposed) birthplace of _Eliza Doolittle._

Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT writes:--"I have every sympathy with the widespread
indignation of my fellow-authors, but personally I am not very closely
concerned. My position is secure: no one is likely to tamper with the
Five Towns in an attempt to improve their washing facilities."

"Might I suggest to the learned pundits of the House of Lords, if it is
not too late," writes Mrs. FLORENCE BARCLAY, "that a writer who, in his
day, enjoyed such a circulation as that of Sir WALTER SCOTT--this is, of
course, fundamentally a question of circulation--is not to be treated in
this cavalier fashion? For oneself, whatever fate may be in store for
the precious local associations of one's past work, it is fortunately
possible to make the future secure. I am laying the scene of my new
romance, of which the fifth chapter is almost completed, on the top of
an inaccessible hill."

Mr. H. G. WELLS points out that there is no particular need in his case
to take action. He hopes that by the day when the conditions in time and
space of his latest novel come into being every household in the country
will be supplied with its own water by a process of filtered absorption
from the atmosphere.

It is anticipated that something definite will be done by the special
committee of the Authors Society which has been appointed with the view
of extending the law of copyright so as to secure the author's undoubted
property in his local associations.

* * * * *

BILLET DOUX.

Monday's breakfast is never a jovial affair. One always has the feeling
that something dreadful has happened or is going to happen. Thus, three
days ago I had with a light heart handed over my practice to a locum and
my books to an accountant, telling the one to look up my bad patients
and the other to look up my bad debts, while I went away to end the week
with the Wrefords. Twelve hours ago it had seemed that I should never
know such happiness in this world again as I had found with them, and
here