reign? And there is no limit to the joys of
this marvellous catalogue. How one dreams of the unknown delights of
"Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books," or "Dan Michel's Ayenbite of
Inwyt, 1340" (which means, as I figure it, the "Backbite of
Conscience"), or "Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt sive Veterum
Interpretum Graecorum in totum Vetus Testamentum Fragmenta, edidit F.
Field. 1865. Two volumes L6 6s. net" or "Shuckford's Sacred and Profane
History of the World, from the Creation of the World to the Dissolution
of the Assyrian Empire at the death of Sardanapalus, and to the
Declension of The Kingdom of Judah and Israel under the Reigns of Ahaz
and Pekah, with the Creation and Fall of Man. 1728, reprinted 1848. Pp
550. 10s. net."

But I dare not force my hobbies on you further. One man's meat is
another's caviar. I dare not even tell you what my favourite tobaccos
are, for recently when I sold to a magazine a very worthy and excellent
poem entitled "My Pipe," mentioning the brands I delight to honour, the
editor made me substitute fictitious names for my dearly loved blends.
He said that sound editorial policy forbids mentioning commercial
products in the text of the magazine.

But tobacco, thank heaven, is not merely a "commercial product." Let us
call on Salvation Yeo for his immortal testimony:

"When all things were made none was made better than this; to be a lone
man's companion, a bachelor's friend, a hungry man's food, a sad man's
cordial, a wakeful man's sleep, and a chilly man's fire, sir; while for
stanching of wounds, purging of rheum, and settling of the stomach,
there's no herb like unto it under the canopy of heaven."

And by this time the bowl is naught but ash. Even my dear General
Catalogue begins to blur before me. Slip it under the pillow; gently and
kindly lay the pipe in the candlestick, and blow out the flame. The
window is open wide: the night rushes in. I see a glimpse of stars ... a
distant chime ... and fall asleep with the faint pungence of the Indian
herb about me.

TIME TO LIGHT THE FURNACE

The twenty-eighth of October. Coal nine dollars a ton. Mr. and Mrs.
Blackwell had made a resolution not to start the furnace until
Thanksgiving. And in the biting winds of Long Island that requires
courage.

Commuters the world over are a hardy, valorous race. The Arab commutes
by dromedary, the Malay by raft, the Indian rajah by elephant, the
African chief gets a team of his mother