LITMIR.BIZ

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once a week, I believe; I'm not an authority yet—I only came down yesterday morning, and I've been setting my house in order. There's a theatre," he added hopefully; "we might drop in to-night, if you like. I can't say what is going on there, but we'll ascertain."

      They spied a framed play-bill in a confectioner's window on the way back, and stopped to examine it. Though the piece was familiar to them, and the names of the company were strange, they crowded before the play-bill cheerfully until they discovered that it bore an ancient date. The theatre, they learnt, was now closed, excepting for an orchestral concert every Thursday evening. This was Saturday.

      "We'll have a jolly evening at home," said Conrad.

      "There isn't a billiard table, I suppose?" inquired Regina; "I'm an awful swell with the cue. I make them play every night at the Abbey when we're there. Polpero chaffs me about it immensely; he's one of the old school—sweet, but of the old school. It's such fun—I chaff him back. Toto roars."

      The inventory had not included a billiard table, but he remembered after dinner that he had seen a Pier "Pavilion" advertised, and his guests seemed encouraged when he mentioned it. Regina said it was fun to be "bohemian" sometimes.

      The place looked less animated still when they sped forth to be "bohemian." Its aspect was no longer sedate, it was bereaved. The vacant High Street mourned behind its shutters. At the Quadrant a forsaken policeman kept a doleful eye on space.

      "Everybody must be on the pier," said Conrad. "As soon as we turn the corner we shall see the lights."

      Their feet sprung echoes in the stricken town as they pressed forward; and through the gloom that veiled a moaning sea, the pier became distinguishable. But no light was on it save the light of a misty moon, no gas-jet glimmered among the globes on either side. The pay-box was black and tenantless; the gates were locked. Against them leant a lonely board, announcing a "Refined Entertainment" for the twenty-second evening of the previous month. The desolation of the scene was tragic.

      Their return was made in silence, and the first thing happened that recalled the days of their childhood here: they all went to bed early.

      Nina wanted to know if she could be given another room the next morning. She remarked that the slowest railways always made the most fuss, and that a train had been rehearsing outside her window half the night. "It rattled and snorted, and clashed and clanked till three o'clock." She acknowledged Conrad's regrets and assurances with a plaintive sigh, and shook her head feebly at her coffee cup.

      It was raining. That it can rain in Sweetbay for a fortnight on end with no longer intervals than the entr'actes at a fashionable theatre is not distinctive; the idiocrasy of Sweetbay is that it recommences raining twenty times a day as if the deluge had bee, hoarded for a year—it rains as if the heavens had fallen out. Nina and 'Gina, who had ventured into the lane "between the showers," were drenched before they could gain shelter, and they were taciturn when they had changed their clothes.

      The rain was still pelting when Ted went up to town on Monday, and a vicious wind lashed "sunny Sweetbay" when he came back. On Tuesday the ardour of the flood abated, but "the fairest spot in England" was sodden under a persevering drizzle, and a letter by the evening post made Regina nervous about the health of her baby. "Toto seemed a good deal worried," she said, "and she thought under the circumstances she ought to be at home." She departed on Wednesday in a cataract.

      "Do you think she's good-looking?" asked Nina.

      "She is not good-looking," said Conrad reflectively, "but she's so convinced that she is that she almost persuades you in moments."

      "That's it," Nina assented; "she attitudinises as if she were a beauty. When they're shown photographs of her with her face bent, men are quite eager to know her. Of course the baby's bosh."

      "I'll confess that I'm not anxious about the baby myself, I'm afraid she found it rather slow here. I got Punch for her at the station, and a servant went round before breakfast to order a foot-warmer—it's necessary to give notice when you'll want a foot-warmer—but it was weak reparation. You were all very good to come."

      "If there were anything to read in the house, I wouldn't mind so much," she said, "I mean I wouldn't mind the weather. If it ever leaves off, we might go and try to find 'a select library in connection with Mudie's.'"

      "There are heaps of books in the house—I can lend you all the poets."

      "I would rather have something to read," she said, "thanks. Do you think if we found one, it would be open oftener than once a week?"

      "You mustn't misjudge the town by the theatre," he expostulated; "that the theatre only opens once a week is due to a combination of circumstances that I don't know anything about, but I am sanguine of the shops opening every day."

      "How long are you saddled with the place for?" Her tone was sympathetic.

      "I'm not sorry I took it," he answered. "Of course everything is more or less a disappointment except the unattainable. When Columbus reached the new world at last, the aborigines said, 'Well, what do you think of Amurrica?' He said, 'I thought it would be bigger.' A bird in the hand is not worth two in the bush; on the contrary, a lark in the sky is worth two in the pudding. If you ever scratched those pretty hands of yours getting a glow-worm out of a hedge, you know that, when you have brought it home, you wondered why you had given yourself so much inconvenience to acquire the little impostor. Possession strains—it depresseth her that gives, and him that takes. While it was in the hedge, the glow-worm shone no less divine than the poet's star."

      "Where was that?" she said.

      "In a fable. Did you think I meant a star of the music-halls? They weren't the fashion in poetry yet. He was a glorious poet enchanted by a star of the heavens. He stretched his arms to it, he sang to it nightly. And for his sake the star 'stooped earthward, and became a woman.' And then the day came when the woman asked her lover which was best—'The Star's beam, or the Woman's breast':—

      "'I miss from heaven,' the man replied,

       'A light that drew my spirit to it.'

       And to the man the woman sigh'd,

       'I miss from earth a poet.'"

      "M-m, that's rather sensible," admitted Nina, "I like that—I suppose it can't be really great poetry. What get on my nerves so in the poetry of the Really Great are those irritating words that I knew were coming, like 'porphyry' and 'empyrean,' and 'bower' and 'nymph;' and then there are the titles—they always sound so dull because I never know what they mean. Well, go on talking to me."

      About eleven o'clock the downpour ceased, and presently a timid sunbeam played upon a puddle. They went out to look for a library at noon. There was no need for umbrellas.

      The librarian was a listless young woman of "superior manners." When not occupied among the literature, she assisted in the fancy department. While Nina was lingering at the shelves, three other readers went to the counter, and the first lady said:—

      "Good morning. I want a … book. Something—er—rather exciting."

      The young woman threw an omniscient glance at the collection, and plucked. The lady read the title aloud:—

      "Is this rather exciting?"

      "Oh yes, madam, that is very exciting."

      "Oh." She ruffled the pages irresolutely. "It's not very long," she murmured; "haven't you anything longer?"

      The young woman plucked.

      "Is this rather exciting?" asked the lady.

      The librarian assured her that it was no less exciting than the other novel.

      "Oh," said the lady … "'The Face in the Drawer.' Oh … I'll take this one then. You know the address, don't you? Good morning."

      The requirement of the second lady was: "Something pretty … not too short … to last me through the week." Conrad almost expected to hear the librarian reply that they had "A very durable

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