the size of a mature sardine, of the consistency of rubber. I was reminded of the Raines' Law sandwich, which in happier years one had to buy in New York when one wanted to get a drink on a Sunday. Following the fish was the heart of an African artichoke covered with a thick brown gravy, as though the hotel authorities were ashamed to show it in its nakedness. It in turn was followed by the pièce de résistance of the dinner: two English sparrows, reclining upon their backs on a small "canopy" of toast, with a dozen or two canned peas rolling about the plate. A few leaves of plantain, served with oil and vinegar, half a ladyfinger, set upright in a small cone of ice cream made of condensed milk, a cup of a black and bitter mixture called coffee, and the repast was complete. As I left the dining-room, trying to dislodge my dinner, which had located itself in a 'ollow tooth, as the musichall artist has it, my thoughts were of London. I thought of the steaming basins of real turtle soup I had devoured at Birch's in the City; of the saddles of mutton with currant jelly at Simpson's; of the turbot at Scott's; and the birds at Hatchett's. I thought of the corned-beef hash with a poached egg and the delicious hot cakes and coffee that they serve you at Child's in New York,-and elsewhere, and I prayed, fervently, that I might never again be obliged to eat a table d'hote dinner, at least not in France. I was aroused from meditation by confronting a sign:

THIS HOTEL IS SOUGHT BY ROYALTY

If they don't find it, they really don't lose much.

In the drawing-room a double semicircle of ladies of varying degrees of spinsterhood sat around what had once been a small wood-fire; it was a room in which thought, reading, and conversation were impossible on account of two young persons' - each of the opposite sex- performance upon musical instruments: she upon the remains of a piano, he upon a fiddle. I recognized the artists; she earlier in the day had tried to inveigle me into hiring an automobile; he had showed us to our rooms upon our arrival. It was a desolating experience.

Slowly we made our way through the French and Italian Riviera to Genoa, where we spent a day or two at one of the finest and most expensive hotels in Europe, the Miramar, the destinies of which seem to be directed by a man whose resemblance to John L. Stewart, professor of economics at Lehigh University, was disconcerting. He, too, is an economist in his way: I believe him to be the lightning short-change artist of the world.

Who that knows him would not spend a day or two with Max Beerbohm, if he could? He lives in one of the loveliest places in the world, Rapallo. From the deck of the villino Chiaro he watches, year after year, the ever-changing and always beautiful Mediterranean, heedless that the world passes his door: let it pass. His talk is as whimsical as his writing, and his writing is must I say, was? the most subtle of his day and mine. "Collect" him; "And Even

Now" there is time. "No. 2. The Pines" is one of the best essays of our generation. Far be it from me to say that Max, "the incomparable Max," is no longer young; he is not so young as he was thirty years ago, when I first met him, but he is — in a way immortal. So much for my Sentimental Journey through France and Italy.

Rome! And then London, my spiritual home, which I made, as the Swede made the ferryboat, in two yumps. In three days I was sauntering comfortably up Bond Street; my thought was of Laurence Sterne. He died in lodgings in this street, "over the silk-bag shop." Messrs. Agnew, the picture-dealers, have built their premises upon the spot. He lived and died a jester, and his end was pathetic. It is a serious world, my masters.

VIII

LONDON IN THE EIGHTEEN-EIGHTIES

DINING Once with a charming woman, and matching minds, as was our habit, about London, she asked me: "If you kept a public house in London, what would you name it?”

"Well," I replied, after a moment's thought, "if my 'pub' had a good connection - meaning thereby, if every old soak in the neighborhood preferred to buy his drink of me rather than of another - I should keep the old name, whatever it was. If, on the other hand, I had to name it myself, I should call it the 'Bunch of Grapes,' suggesting thereby expensive wines rather than cheap malt liquor; then also it would be called by the cockney the 'Bunch of Gripes' - and that would delight me. What would you call yours?"

"The Marquis of Granby,"" she replied promptly; "I've always thought that a very elegant name. You'd call it 'Markis,' of course."

"Certainly I should," I replied. "What's your favorite railway-station?'

"Victoria, Brighton Line," she said. "And yours?" "Oh, there's only one for me," I answered, "Euston, the station by which I first entered the great town, one evening in June, just forty years ago.

We drifted on to other subjects and the matter

went out of my mind until the other day, when, happening to pass the great granite portals of that station, I thought of the joy that was mine when I first realized that I was actually in London.

I was traveling entirely by myself, and my chief preparation for my tour had been a course of the Rollo Books-I can hardly imagine a better. By them I was in some measure prepared for whatever came my way, whether "Upon the Atlantic,” “In London," or elsewhere. When my boat - the British Prince, a small tub that sailed from Philadelphia touched at Queenstown, greatly to my surprise a letter was put into my hand. It was from a young lad, a distant cousin whom I had heard of only remotely; but it welcomed me to English shores.

"If I knew what you looked like," he said, "I would meet you at Euston." (I wondered where Euston was.) But as my cousin was not prepared to recognize me, his letter went on to say that perhaps I would take a cab at the station and come along to Number 2 Rupert Street, where I could live with him, very cheaply, if I wanted to. When, upon arrival, I stepped out into the almost unspeakable confusion of Euston, I wondered how ever was I to make my way to my destination; but the difficulties vanished as I approached them, and half an hour later I was being welcomed by a boy about my own age into a cheap and dingy boarding-house where he was living, and found I could secure a tiny room,a mere closet in which I could sleep, and that bed