_Sir Charles Russell_ (_interrupting_). Thank you. The passage is from
_One of our Conquerors_. Here is another:--"Reverting to the father
and mother, his idea of a positive injury, that was not without its
congratulations, sank him down among his disordered deeper sentiments,
which were a diver's wreck, where an armoured livid subtermarine, a
monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered seriously light in heaviness;
trebling his hundredweights to keep him from dancing like a
bladder-block of elastic lumber." And while you are about it,
pray inform the Court what you mean by "the vulgarest of our
gobble-gobbets," or by "a trebly cataphractic Invisible."

_Mr. G.M._ Truly, the louder members of the grey public are
fraternally instant to spurn at the whip of that which they do not
immediately comprehend. But to me, plunged chokingly in translucent
profundities of aquamarine splendour, not of a truth that in the
heights above splendour resides not, chidingly offering a fat
whiskerless cheek to the blows of circumstance, this was ever the
problem of problems. How to write. How not to write. This way and
that the raging fates tug the hapless reader, pillowed he upon the
vast brown bosom of his maternal earth, or lurefully beckoning the
dim shadow-shapes of dodecahedronic cataplasmatic centipede fatally
conditioned to the everlasting pyramid of a star-pointing necessity.
So--

_The Judge_ (_with determination_). Mr. MEREDITH, the Court is
sincerely obliged to you for your extremely valuable evidence. We are
unwilling to detain you any longer. Besides, after what you have said,
the point is as clear as daylight. Good morning, Mr. MEREDITH, good
morning. You may become a trebly cataphractic Invisible.

* * * * *

THE THINNING OF THE THATCH.

[Illustration]

Oh, the Autumn leaves are falling, and the days are closing in,
And the breeze is growing chilly, and my hair is getting thin!
I've a comfortable income--and my age is thirty-three;
But my Thatch is thinning quickly--yes, as quickly as can be!

I was once a merry urchin--curly-headed I was called,
And I laughed at good old people when I saw them going bald;
But it's not a proper subject to be lightly joked about,
For it's dreadful to discover that your roof is wearing out!

I remember asking Uncle--in my innocent surprise--
How he liked his head made use of as a Skating Rink by flies;
But although their dread intrusion