ess an irresistible force
seemed to draw him home. On the car he sat glum and silent, wondering
how all the other men could read their papers so contentedly.

At last he reached the modest little suburb. He hurried along the street
and had almost entered his gate when he paused.

Through the half-drawn curtains he could see Ethel sitting comfortably
by the lamp. She was reading, and the cat was in her lap. His heart
leaped with a great throb. But how could he go in now? It was barely
eight o'clock. After all his talk about a man's need of relaxation and
masculine comradeship--why, she would never stop laughing! He turned and
tiptoed away.

That evening was a nightmare for Simmons. Opposite his house was a
little suburban park, and thither he took himself. For a long while he
sat on a bench cursing. Twice he started for the trolley, and again
returned. It was a damp autumn night; little by little the chill pierced
his light coat and he sneezed. Up and down the little park he tramped,
biting a dead cigar. Once he went as far as the drugstore and bought a
box of crackers.

At last--it seemed years--the church chimes struck ten and he saw the
lights go out in his house. He forced himself to make twenty-five more
trips around the gravel walk and then he could wait no longer. Shivering
with weariness and cold, he went home.

He let himself in with his latch key and tiptoed upstairs. He leaned
over the bed and Ethel stirred sleepily.

"What time is it, dear?" she murmured. "You're early, aren't you?"

"One o'clock," he lied bravely--and just then the dining-room clock
struck half-past ten and supported him.

"Did you have a good time?"

"Bully--perfectly bully," he said. "There's nothing like a night with
the boys now and then."

THE HILARITY OF HILAIRE

I remember some friends of mine telling me how they went down to
Horsham, in Sussex, to see Hilaire Belloc. They found him in the cellar,
seated astraddle of a gigantic wine-cask just arrived from France, about
to proceed upon the delicate (and congenial) task of bottling the wine.
He greeted them like jovial Silenus, and with competitive shouts of
laughter the fun went forward. The wine was strained, bottled, sealed,
labelled, and binned, the master of the vintage initiating his young
visitors into the rite with bubbling and infectious gaiety--improvising
verses, shouting with merriment, full of an energy and vivacity almost
inconceivable to Saxon phlegm