--that Lady CATHERINE'S sympathies, political and social, are
undisguisedly with the past, and that the "Education of the People"
comes in, upon almost every other page, for as shrewd raps as her
gentle nature will allow her to administer.

* * * * *

I wish I were Mr. JUSTUS MILES FORMAN. Because then, if I ever chanced
to wake up suddenly and find that I had been drugged in my sleep,
and the six immense rubies, brought here from the East by a far-off
ancestor and set in a black agate shield above my bed, to represent
the "six _gouttes_ (or drops) _gules_ on a field _sable_" of my
immemorial coat-of-arms, had been rudely reaved from me in the night
by my cousin, who had sent one each to his six sons, I should have no
fear. I should feel perfectly convinced that in a short time, by my
own personal exertions, but without exercising the least particle
of intelligence, I should recover those six rubies (representing six
_gouttes_ or drops _gules_) and replace them in the black agate
shield (representing a field _sable_); and naturally enough, like the
autobiographical hero of _The Six Rubies_ (representing----I beg
your pardon, I mean, published by WARD, LOCK), I should not dream
of calling in the aid of the police. Another jolly thing that would
inspirit me would be the fact that each of my adventures in search of
the missing jewels would conform to a separate and well-known type of
magazine story: there would be one fire, one notorious cracksman, one
haunted castle, one cabinet with a secret drawer, and so on. There
would be plenty of excitement, plenty of hairbreadth escapes. But
I think that, when collating my experiences and putting them into
six-shilling form, I should delete some of the tautologous references
to the past which are one of the stern necessities of serial
publication. Otherwise my readers might begin to feel slightly
fatigued by my six ancestral _gouttes_. They might even begin to feel
that they did not much care if I had hereditary sciatica.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Lady (to Nut who has talked of joining the Nationalist
Volunteers)._ "BUT YOU DON'T MEAN TO SAY, SURELY, YOU'RE GOING TO
FIGHT?"

_Nut._ "WELL I RATHER THOUGHT OF PAIRING WITH ONE OF THE ULSTER
FELLOWS."]

* * * * *

"In addition to excellent port, which furnished many prominent
features, the attendance was perhaps the best ever