Startling to see staring advertisement over a shop in the Arcade, "Dark Room for Amateurs." Sounds like a punishment. Bad amateur actor, or entertainer, sentenced to dark room would, probably, deserve it.
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The visitor to the delightful Torrs can have one penn'orth or two penn'orth of Torrs. Twopence is the top price. Well worth it, as a treat, now and then. Ordinarily penn'orth of Torrs will suffice. There should be shelters on the Torrs. Immediate attention of I. I. C. requested.
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The hedges in the lanes are redolent of honey-suckle; and the Torrs Walks are sweet with honey-mooners.
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Beware of taking too much of the cream of Devon. "Is it possible to take too much?" asks my friend and companion, to whom half a pound of it at breakfast, another half-pound at lunch, and a third at dinner, are but as a dozen natives, at a single sitting, to a champion devourer of bivalves. I cannot resolve my friend's question. But, after emulating, as far as my limited powers would permit me, his excellent example, I had the following curious dream. For particulars, see next paragraph.
***
The Dream.—I was seated opposite a lady, popular alike in the social and political world, whom I will designate as "Lady Jay." It was at a dinner-party, I think, though it might have been some other sort of entertainment, as there seemed to me to be, between Lady Jay and myself, the narrow width of a very long table, the ends of which were out of sight. This table was covered with a white cloth, not too clean; and there were no knives, forks, plates, or dishes. The room was inconveniently crowded by persons, inextricably mixed up, none of whom, however, incommoded us in the least, or, indeed, seemed to take the slightest notice of our presence. Somehow, this struck me as delicate conduct on their part. Lady Jay was insisting that an Archimandrite could, or could not, do something or other officially. But, having more than once demonstrated to Lady Jay that this act, whatever it was, had no essential bearing on his clerical position, I continued to take very slight interest in the discussion; at least, I thought I did not, until, on Lady Jay suddenly becoming dreadfully in earnest, and most positive as to her being in the right, a Whip of the late Government, whose name I could not recall, but with whose lineaments I was perfectly familiar, interposed some conciliatory remarks. Then Mr. Gladstone, in the absence, unaccountably sudden, of both Lady Jay and the Government Whip, strode up and down on the hearth-rug, rubbing the back of his head with his left hand; whereupon I became aware that we were no longer wherever I had been until the appearance of Mr. Gladstone on the scene, but that we were in the library of the Prime Minister's official residence in Downing Street. I was seated in an odd sort of spider-legged arm-chair. Mr. Gladstone, bringing himself to a halt, turned round, and asked me, pointedly, "Whether I could play the piano." Being rather nettled at the tone of this inquiry, which seemed to imply a doubt of my proficiency as a pianist, I replied, somewhat testily, "Certainly; rather better than Beethoven." Apparently satisfied with my answer, Mr. Gladstone said that "if I would oblige him by not continuing my discussion with Lady Jay, in which I had been," he admitted, "absolutely right"—and here he made some facetious allusion as to ladies in general, of which I could not catch one word—"I should," he went on, "have a seat in the Cabinet." Oddly enough, this offer of his did not strike me as anything so very extraordinary; and I at once replied, "No, thank you, I'd rather not." But Mr. Gladstone would take no refusal; he said, "I have come to a decision on this subject," and then abruptly disappeared, through the wall. Whether it was a few minutes, or hours, afterwards, I could not for the life of me determine, being only conscious of some time having elapsed, before I found myself in an avenue on the Bayswater side of Hyde Park, walking up and down with Mr. John Morley. Our conversation there was, I suppose, on the subject of Bulgaria, as this topic was continued by us in a kind of narrow box-room, with hat-pegs on the walls, on which bathing-towels were suspended; there were also trunks on the floor, and school-desks all about, on one of which Mr. Morley rested his elbow, swaying himself backwards and forwards like a pendulum, while always talking to me (I was seated on a box), and uttering platitudes about Bulgaria. I interrupted him by saying curtly, "It is no use talking to me like that, as I am in the Cabinet." Mr. John Morley was staggered; but, recovering himself, he turned to Herbert Gardner (to whom I apologised for not remembering his title, while he, sitting on a smaller box, smilingly refused to enlighten me), and asked for corroboration of my statement. Whereupon I produced an autograph letter of Mr. Gladstone's to me, which entirely satisfied Mr. John Morley, who, having handed it to Herbert Gardner, now candidly disclosed the schemes of the Government on the subject in question, putting forcibly before me "how we are going to deal with Bulgaria." Not a single word of what he said could I understand. Still, as a member of the Cabinet, I felt bound to give his explanations my gravest attention, my difficulty being not to expose my hopeless ignorance by any inappropriate question. It was with some new-born sense of importance that I found we were once again in Lady Jay's company, this time in her drawing-room, and seated in a low chair, while John Morley had brought with him the school-desk, on which he was still leaning his elbow, and still swaying and swinging like a pendulum. Lady Jay was all for resuming her discussion about the Archimandrite, refusing to credit the assurances given by Mr. Morley (balancing himself on his elbow) and myself as to my being in the Cabinet secrets. At this point rushed in someone, who was alternately Herbert Gardner and a Ponsonby, until he settled down into being Herbert Gardner for certain, who exclaimed excitedly, "I have just seen Mr. Gladstone! He says, 'It is absurd to suppose that his letter ever meant anything of the sort!'" I quietly demanded the restoration of Mr. Gladstone's letter to me; so did Mr. John Morley. The protean representative of Herbert Gardner or Ponsonby, or anybody else, replied simply, "I haven't got it." This seemed to perfectly satisfy everybody, and no further questions being forthcoming, Lady Jay seized the opportunity to declare triumphantly, addressing me personally—John Morley and the protean representative having disappeared—how she had "ascertained from a Cardinal that".... But what was the solution of the difficulty, or what was the original difficulty itself, I shall never know in this world, though I may do so in the World of Dreams, as here I awoke, and was so impressed with the reality of the events that had passed, and with the present necessity for recording them, that I at once entered them in my note-book, and here they are.