(_A hand-bell rings in the passage_.)FIDO: Bow-wow-wow!REV. A. HAVERTON (_giving him a smart kick_): Shurrup!FIDO (_howling_). Pen-an'-ink! Pen-an'-ink
Pen-an'-ink! Pen-an'-ink!

REV. A. HAVERTON (_controlling himself, as well as he can, goes to the door and calls into the passage_): Miss Grosvenor! (_Louder_) ... Miss Grosvenor!... Was that the bell for prayers? Was that the bell for prayers?... (_Louder_) Miss Grosvenor. (_Louder_) Miss Gros-ve-nor! (_Tapping with his foot_.) Oh!...

MISS GROSVENOR (_sweetly and, far off_): Is that Mr. Haverton?

REV. A. HAVERTON: Yes! yes! yes! yes!... Was that the bell for prayers?

MISS GROSVENOR (_again_): Yes? Is that Mr. Haverton? Oh! Yes! I think it is.... I'll see--I'll ask Matilda.

(_A pause, during which the_ REV. A. HAVERTON
_is in a qualm_.)MISS GROSVENOR (_rustling back_): Matilda says it
_is_ the bell for prayers.(_They all come filing into the study and arranging the chairs.
As they enter_ MISS HARVEY, _the guest, treads heavily on
MATILDA'S foot._)MISS HARVEY: Matilda? Was that you? I _beg_ your pardon.MATILDA (_limping_): Granted, I'm sure, miss!

MRS. HAVERTON (_whispering to the_ REV. A. HAVERTON): Do not read the Creed! Miss Harvey is a Unitarian. I should suggest some simple form of prayer, Some heartfelt word of charity and peace Common to every Christian.

REV. A. HAVERTON (_in a deep voice_): Let us pray._Curtain._

ON A NOTEBOOK

A dear friend of mine (John Abdullah Capricorn, to give him his full name) was commandeered by a publisher last year to write a book for L10. The work was far advanced when an editor offered him L15 and his expenses to visit the more desperate parts of the Sahara Desert, to which spots he at once proceeded upon a roving commission. Whether he will return or no is now doubtful, though in March we had the best hopes. With the month of May life becomes hard for Europeans south of the Atlas, and when my poor dear friend was last heard of he was chancing his popularity with a tribe of Touaregs about two hundred miles south of Touggourt.

Under these circumstances I was asked to look through his notebook and see what could be done; and I confess to a pleased surprise.... It would have been a very entertaining book had it been published. It will be a very entertaining book if it is published.

Capricorn seems to have prepared a hotchpotch of information of human follies, of contrasts, and of blunt stupidities of which he intended to make a very entertaining series of pages. I have not his talent for bringing such things together, but it may amuse the reader if I merely put in their order one or two of the notes which most struck me.

I find first, cut out of a newspaper and pasted into the book (many of his notes are in this form), the following really jovial paragraph: