conventional incredulity in the readers’ bosom, the author is constrained to point out that he harboured only the purest and most abstract sentiments towards these young women. There is a period in the life of the literary artist, unhappily not permanent, when the surface of his mind may be described as absorbent of emotional influences, a period which results in the accumulation of vast quantities of data concerning women without to any degree destroying the authentic simplicity of his heart. And when the point of saturation is reached, to use an engineer’s phrase, the artist, still preserving his own innocence, begins to produce. And this, one may remark in passing, is the happiest time of his life! He combines the felicity of youth, the wisdom of age, and the unencumbered vitality of manhood. He knows, even while in love, as he frequently is at such periods, that there are loftier peaks beyond, mountain-ranges of emotion up which some day he is destined to travel, and he disregards the pathetic seductions of those who would bid him settle in their quiet valleys.

Arriving in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross, the author takes an affectionate glimpse into Trafalgar Square, and turns down a steep, narrow street, leading towards the River, where is situated a small eating house. At that time, it should be observed, almost the only way for a stranger to obtain a breakfast in London was to go to a hotel and engage a room. Even at railroad terminals, where the refreshment-rooms were just beginning to be swept and garnished, and the waitresses were yawning behind the big urns, they did not regard the famished traveller with any enthusiasm. It was felt that a stranger wanting food at that hour had been up to no good. The author, being a skilled Londoner, was put to no such inconvenience. It was his habit, at intervals, to write special articles for the London papers, articles which had to be delivered to the night commissionaire on duty in the office of the newspaper. The particular functionary employed by the News was a social being and fond of port, and over a dock-glass at Finches, the celebrated bar in Fleet Street, had recommended a certain chop-house where night-birds ate before retiring to their nests in distant suburbs. To this hostelry the author therefore repairs, down the narrow declivity, in at the door whose brass handles are being vigorously polished by a youth in a green baize apron, and upstairs to a long low chamber furnished with small tables. Here one discovers some half-dozen strays from the millions of Londoners who breakfast in orthodox fashion—in the secrecy and sullen silence of their own homes. And the salient feature of the people in this upstairs room is the inexorable isolation of their souls. No one speaks. One or two look up from their food as the author makes his way to the window from which he commands a glimpse of blue sky, the elevation of an enormous brick wall, and possibly a locomotive having its firebox cleaned on a siding and panting as though afflicted with lung trouble. He takes his seat not far from a young woman who is breakfasting on a bun and a glass of milk. She is reading a book, a fat novel in fine print, the covers soiled with food and the corners grimy with years of friction. She is there every morning eating a bun and drinking a glass of milk. She has a clear, delicate face, blonde hair, and large black eyes. Her hands are fine, too, though they might be better kept. One suspects she does her own washing after she gets home at night.

The reader may possibly wonder why the author should lower himself in the esteem of men by dilating upon the appearance of a stray young woman whom fate had washed up on the shores of time near him and whom the next wave would inevitably bear away again. But the reader must exercise a little patience. Several women appear in this preface, and the author imagines they may reveal to the reader something of the mentality which wrote this book. A mentality somewhat alien to the English, since it was profoundly interested in women without incurring any suspicion of French naughtiness, or endeavouring in any way to make itself pleasing to them. A mentality hampered by an almost hysterical shyness which, however, was capable of swift and complete evaporation in certain circumstances.

So far, let it be premised, the shyness was still in evidence, and the author became as silent and austere as the other members of the company. There was a youth, in trousers obviously pressed under his mattress, and a coat too short for him, whose air of shabby smartness brought tears to the eyes of the author, who had passed through very much the same purgatory years before. Indeed it was very much like a coffee room in purgatory, if the reader can imagine such a thing, for every one of the patrons had this distinguishing trait—they were shackled and tortured and seared by the lack of a little money. The mangy old waif who asked for a cup of tea and furtively fished out of a little black oil-cloth bag a couple of thick sandwiches; the middle-aged person with a fine moustache, frock-coat, and silk-hat, who ordered coffee and bacon and eggs, and forgot to eat while his tired eyes fixed themselves with insane intensity upon a mineral-water advertisement on the opposite wall; the foreign lady (whom the author hastens to record as a virtuous matron) whose bizarre hat and brightly painted cheeks were stowed away in an obscure and lonely corner where she pored over a Greek newspaper; the middle-aged gentleman whose marbled note-book was filled with incredibly fine writing and columns of figures which ought to have meant something substantial, but which were probably only lists of bad debts utterly uncollectable—all these poor people would have been carried up to heaven had they suddenly discovered under their plates a twenty-pound note. And the desire to do this thing, to play the rich uncle for once, was at times so keen that the author felt himself in purgatory, too, in a way, and lost his appetite thinking about it.

The reader may opine that such a meal would be but a poor preliminary for a morning of study, but the fact remains that the contemplation of misery stimulates one’s mental perceptions. Once more out in the Strand, having watched the young woman descend the narrow street and fling a swift glance over her shoulder as she turned into Northumberland Avenue, the author mounted a Barking ’bus and settled himself in the front seat, a gay little Union Jack fluttering just above his head, and gave himself up unreservedly to reflections evoked by a return, after some years at sea, to his native air. Every foot of the way eastward brought up memories long dormant beneath the swarms of alien impressions received since going to sea, impressions that ranged from the songs of an octaroon in a blind-tiger back of Oglethorpe Avenue in Savannah, to the mellow Boom-cling-clang of temple-bells heard in the flawless dawn from a verandah above the sampan-cluttered canals of Osaka. Between his nostrils and the ancient odours of creosote blocks and of river mud drying at low tide came the heavy scent of Arab quarters, the reek of Argentine slaughter-houses and the subtle pervasions of Singapore. Since he had read with careless neglect the familiar names over familiar shops where he and his father had dealt in the common things of life, his eyes had ached with the glittering hieroglyphics of Chinatown and the incomprehensible futilities of Armenian and Cyrillic announcements. So it came about that he regarded the cheerful, homely, and sun-lit Strand with extraordinary delight, a delight enhanced by the incorrigible conviction that in a few weeks he would quit it once more