Mary Elizabeth Jane (the smart new Parlourmaid who knows everything). "Yes, Sir. Cambridge, of course!"
ROUNDABOUT READINGS.
Some of us like our English short, others prefer it expanded. Some of us, for instance, might say that "Nero fiddled while Rome burnt." But this bald statement is obviously quite unsuited to the decorative instincts of the age, for in the Daily Telegraph, only last week, I read that "a notorious Roman Emperor is credited with the performance of a violin solo during the raging of a serious conflagration in the heart of his capital." The omission of Nero's name gives to this sentence a delicate parliamentary flavour, which brings it absolutely up to date.
But what a noble example it is! Henceforward, for instance, if it should ever fall to my lot to write about Henry the Eighth of England, I shall feel a mere fool if I state that he married seven wives. No, no. A British monarch, celebrated in the books of the historians as the Eighth, and hitherto the last of his name, is reported, on the authority of the Ecclesiastical registers of his time, to have entertained so warm and overpowering an affection for the connubial condition commonly known as matrimony, as to have entered into it with a comparatively light heart on as many occasions as would equal the sum total of predecessors bearing his name who have supported the burden of the crown of these realms. For a very slight increase of salary I am prepared to double the length of this sentence without adding a single fact to it.
Here, too, is a delightful extract from a gorgeously illustrated volume issued by a firm of house-agents in praise of what they very properly term "an imposing structure in red brick." "It is difficult," they declare (and after reading their description one can well believe it) "to conceive a more replete Town Mansion, embodying such artistic and delicate schemes of decoration, one where wealth has wrought such a revelation of harmonious and fitly fitments, or where the studious consideration of the minutest detail contributing to health, enjoyment and comfort has been more completely manifested. This, combined with its advantageous position removed from any main thoroughfare with its accompanying turmoil, renders it a perfect dwelling and an idealistic London Home."
No more by White Star or by Guion
I leave my native land to roam.