ernoon, with overcoat buttoned up and collar
about my ears, I stroll aimlessly through the town. It has often been
my ambition to emulate those correct creatures who, when they come to
a place, study maps, read guide-books, and "do" the sights one by one.
But, so far, I am a dead failure. Even my own dear London is known to
me by long-continued pedestrianism. When I reach a town I put up by
chance, I see things by chance, leave on an impulse, and carry away
precious glimpses of nothing in particular that I can piece together
at leisure into a sort of mnemonic mosaic. Well, so I stroll through
Swansea, trying to forget the only two facts which I know concerning
it--that Beau Nash was born here and Savage died here. They are like
bits of grit in the oyster of my content. I will turn aside and see
life.

I enter one of my favourite taverns. I am surrounded by maidens,
barmaidens, and a fat landlady. Amy, Baby, Starlight, Chubby--all
are here, clamorous for the baubles I had promised them four months
before. My friend would be shocked at their familiarity; I admit, from
a certain point of view, it is scandalous. But, then, all things are
still forgiven to sailors. And so, business being slack, I am dragged
into the bar-parlour and commanded to disgorge. I produce bottles of
perfume, little buckhorns, ostrich feathers, flamingo wings, and bits
of silk. The big pocket of my overcoat is discharged of its cargo. I
am suffocated with salutes of the boisterous, tom-boy kind, and am
commanded to name my poison.

As a reward, Chubby promises to go with me to that iridescent
music-hall up the street. Chubby's appearance is deceptive. She is
diminutive, with a Kenwigs tail of plaited hair down her straight
little back. But she is almost twenty; she is amazingly swift behind
the bar, and no man has yet bilked her of a penny. There is a Spartan
courage about the small maiden, too, which I cannot but admire. Her
parents are dead; her sisters both died the same week a year ago; she
must earn her living; but--"No use mopin', is it?" she inquires as she
fingers a locket containing photographs which hangs around her neck.
That is her philosophy, couched in language that resembles herself.
I should be only too delighted to take her. But--there is my
incorrigible habit of reading a book or lapsing into intellectual
oblivion while at the play. How many comedies have I "seen" without
hearing a single word! So, when I go to the iridescent musi