As Gortsby retraced his steps past the seat where the little drama had taken place he saw an elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath it and on all sides of it, and recognised his earlier fellow occupant.
“Have you lost anything, sir?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, a cake of soap.”
A TOUCH OF REALISM
“I hope you’ve come full of suggestions for Christmas,” said Lady Blonze to her latest arrived guest; “the old-fashioned Christmas and the up-to-date Christmas are both so played out. I want to have something really original this year.”
“I was staying with the Mathesons last month,” said Blanche Boveal eagerly, “and we had such a good idea. Every one in the house-party had to be a character and behave consistently all the time, and at the end of the visit one had to guess what every one’s character was. The one who was voted to have acted his or her character best got a prize.”
“It sounds amusing,” said Lady Blonze.
“I was St. Francis of Assisi,” continued Blanche; “we hadn’t got to keep to our right sexes. I kept getting up in the middle of a meal, and throwing out food to the birds; you see, the chief thing that one remembers of St. Francis is that he was fond of the birds. Every one was so stupid about it, and thought that I was the old man who feeds the sparrows in the Tuileries Gardens. Then Colonel Pentley was the Jolly Miller on the banks of Dee.”
“How on earth did he do that?” asked Bertie van Tahn.
“‘He laughed and sang from morn till night,’” explained Blanche.