And mine, like his, is a harmless lunacy that goes unwatched; for here I sit at my desk in contemplation with journey done and, gazing at the twilight of the year, I review its mild adventure-its jest and mishap, its merry hour, the sun and shadow of its prime. In this season our greener days are past; and nature, stoking now her furnace against the winter, in one universal conflagration of the hills tries vainly to lift the autumn chill.

As nights grow cold our memory of June quickens into life, and the frosty storage of October preserves in recollection the moons of August and the verdure of the hills. A wind is loose tonight and in the rustling of leaves across the lawn I hear the shouts of summer, its chance and venture, its song and frolic of the night, and those sober voices, also, which lay a shadow in the pattern.

My book has started. I am home again, weaving a narrative of such matters as I recall. A beginning is the hardest, for a first chapter, like Bovril, wheezes into motion.

Through August we walked in southern England on a long path of many towns and it is my desire to capture these creatures that fly about me, to sentence them within the prison of a book. Roundabout we went from London in a great loop which the map must show, and at the end we were pilgrims on the road to Canterbury.

Can words bring back the musty smell of inns, the village streets where children romp, the appetite and thirst that end a dusty day? Can they recall the con

tour of the hills, the wall of ancient battles, the spire that rises through the trees to lead us to the older centuries? Can the tinkle of a word recall the shallow murmur of sunny waters and build a pilgrims' bridge? Or if a paragraph shall throw its net shall a cloud be

If a paragraph shall throw its net shall a cloud be caught? caught? Roads wander in the twilight of the mind, with grazing cattle and meadows patched in many colors. From a hilltop of the brain there stretches out the sea where ships go back and forth on smoky errand. Soft on the carpet of the woods the fancy lies and hears the melody of wind whose slim fingers strum forever in the trees. Words must be brought from common use to rear the castles of the thought. They must fetch back the laugh that escaped from the window of a tavern. Words are a galleon whose hold is piled with

treasure for such market as spends a proper coin of sympathy and understanding. Memory pours them from an inkpot and a jest is kept alive beyond its echo.

Night leans its thin black face upon the window. I whistle to the creatures of my fancy.

JULIA FLORY

The engaging clutter in the antiquary's window

CHAPTER IV

THE MAN WITH A FLY IN HIS BEER

E were on the road next morning shortly before ten o'clock but were stopped presently

W

by the engaging clutter in the antiquary's window just across from General Wolfe's. The shop was locked but the owner had seen us and up he pattered for a sale. Bill has a collector's taste for old glass, so he tapped the goblets for their sound.

And now it seemed that one day several years ago a motor had halted at the antiquary's door and a gentleman with bushy hair somewhat past middle life had entered with a tinkling of the doorbell. He bought several goblets like these that stood before us, sent them to his motor with evident satisfaction and drove away. Hardly had he turned the corner when a neighbor rushed in breathless to tell him that his customer had been Lloyd George.

"Lloyd George in this very shop, sir, standing just where you are, talking to me like an equal!"

"Amazing!" said Bill.

"A dozen goblets! Twelve of them! Me tiein' them up in the Daily Mail!"

The antiquary had been a Tory, I suspect, until this encounter; but now at my challenge he confessed that his politics were shaken. In any discussion in the village pub doubtless he wavers to the Liberal camp.

During his long narration he had hooked my buttonhole, and he followed us to the sidewalk and up the street for added detail. I have myself met one or two golden persons, and I know how the old man cherished green outsiders to listen to his boast. If ever I meet Lloyd George I shall tell him that he holds safe the crossroad vote.

At the antiquary's we turned south on the highway up a long hill to Chart's Edge. In Kentish dialect a chart is a rough common overgrown with gorse and broom and heather. These commons are of a shaggier, less tamed beauty than private land. Where the growth can be digested sheep and cattle keep them nibbled close, and in their unfenced patches of brier and thistle with wayward paths upon the hills they convey a suggestion of wanton gypsy life.

A caravan of these swarthy nomads had gone through Westerham as we sat at breakfast—a very circus of red shawls and covered wagons-and it is likely that last night they were camped here upon the chart where blackened embers still remained. I had asked the waitress their means of livelihood. They tell fortunes