arrived and he met us on the steps with word that we could get beds only when the crowd had been served their tea-one room surely and another if a man failed to come who had written for accommodation. All through the inn there was a running about with trays and cups, collisions in the hallway of food coming up and empties going down, the tramp of impatient feet, calls for spoons and sugar, the spilling of careless liquor and a general swilling in the bar which was foul beyond excuse. Char-à-bancs honked outside to hurry up their passengers and gentlemen issued from the tap wiping their lips upon their sleeves. We escaped from this hubbub and found a corner of the garden at the rear where we were safe from being splashed.

"Does it occur to you" said Bill, "that except for the trivet at the hearth and the milk-maid's stool there are no creatures in all the world which have three legs?" "The thought had not struck me," I confessed.

"It's odd," said Bill. "Bipeds we have, quadrupeds, six-, eight-, ten-legged animals; but always their legs are of an even number. Consider the zoo! Can you remember one?"

"But with an odd number they would not balance," I objected. "A boat must have a like number of oars each side."

"Your reasoning is shallow," answered Bill.

"They would wobble," I persisted.

"Not at all. The milk-stool is quite firm. Ah, I had forgotten the kangaroo; but he is in a manner an experiment. His tail is a kind of leg and aids him in locomotion. He balances, then leaps. The tail surely was not con

trived merely to swish at flies. The monkey puts it to frequent use. With him it is in a sense a leg. Half of his agility comes from it. But nature, having advanced so far, abandoned the experiment."

"And what conclusion do you draw from this?” I asked.

"On a walking trip" Bill answered, and his tone was of a feeble melancholy, "I would find it convenient to have an extra leg to throw into service at four o'clock. Until that hour it might dangle behind and be a passenger. But with it for substitute like an extra tire, one blister would not retard my speed."

He stretched himself upon the grass. He pulled his cap across his eyes and mouth. But his brain was too busy for sleep. Presently he spoke, in rather a muffled manner, through his cap.

"I was thinking" he began, "that if man had three legs a waltz would be his marching tune. Bing bung bung, bing bung bung!"

"And so it would. If all of them were working."

"But waltzes have something dreamy in their composition. They are not tunes to stir the vigor. They are sentimental-persuasive to laziness. I would sit much by the roadside, in that event, in meditation of far-off matters."

"You speak the truth," I answered.

"An army of three legs could not go forth to battle to the present tump-tump of the inspiring drum. Consider the waltzes that you know! Is there one of them that could hurry an army on the march? With three legs and a waltz, each man would reflect on a girl he had

left behind. Forward! Waltz! It would be a blow to war."

"And so it would," I answered.

"Much of our vigor" continued Bill, still speaking through his cap, "comes because, being bipeds, we are fitted to the greater vigor of four-beat time. From it we get our energy, our will to conquer the infinite. With three legs our fiber would relax. We would move on dreams and sentiment."

"Sleep a bit," I interrupted. "Poor fellow, you have need of rest."

"Quite right," said Bill.

He stretched his two feet into space as if they groped for worlds unknown, and his snoring mingled in the wind. It was already twilight before the thunder of the char-à-bancs had faded to the north. In the wreckage of the dining room, where a dog nosed about for salvage, we were served cold fowl and hunks of bread.

"Two hundred and forty teas we've served today," our hostess said. "On any night but Saturday and Sunday I could have fed you better." She drew a sleeve across her dirty face. "I'm that tired on Sunday night."

"How does it come" I asked, "that a royal coat of arms hangs above your door?"

"Oh that! Queen Victoria was once saved from a runaway just in front. A gentleman who lived near by ran out and seized the horses. And here she slept-in the room that the tall gentleman has."

Bill's room! And he lay on the coverlet because it was the cleanest stratum of his bed.

Beezer and I slept at the back and from the window we looked down upon a midden of broken food that had been thrown out from the kitchen. I went over my bed by candlelight; but life, if it existed, rested from its labor. Nor was my rest disturbed.

Here, let me add, that only at Hurst Green and one other place was our inn unwholesome. Bill hereafter always spoke of this place as Robin's Nest—why, I do not know—and with a shudder. Yet the landlady was an obliging soul and we were sorry for her distress.

W

DAWKEN

E were abroad early Monday morning and walked through high and windy country to the south. Turning to the east two miles short of Robertsbridge, presently we passed a wooden tower where one might climb an extra forty feet for a penny and a further view. But where nature has already piled the hills to a fitting eminence such addition is a vain conceit. Who but a fool would mount a ladder to increase the stature of the Alps, or fetch a stool to Matterhorn? There are such structures in the Berkshires, on all mountains that tourists frequent; and they do but emphasize man's littleness when he stands before his God.

And so, meditating sourly on the folly of travelers,