ived of
the sweet repose which is popularly believed to shut the door on the
nose of the doctor.

Yes, decidedly, it was Sunday afternoon!

The weather was very hot and languid, and the bees kept on buzzing all
the time. Bung was engaged in investigating the coal-hole, apparently
under the impression that hidden treasure was not foreign to its soil;
and conversation entirely languished. Madame Valtesi dropped her
stitches, Lord Reggie failed to kill his flies, and Mr. Amarinth
misunderstood the drift of leading articles. The Sabbath mind was very
much in evidence, and the Sabbath mind verges on imbecility. The bells
chiming for afternoon service rose on the still air, and died away; but
nobody moved. Evidently enthusiasm for rusticity combined with religion
was fading away. A silence reigned, and the hour for tea drew slowly on.
But presently Amarinth, after reading all the advertisements on the
cover of his newspaper, put it down slowly and glanced around, with the
puffy expression of a person suppressing a grown-up yawn.

His eyes wandered about, to Mrs. Windsor immersed in amateur gardening
of the destructive kind, to Lord Reggie in his hammock, to Madame
Valtesi dropping stitches in her low chair. He sighed and spoke--

"Newspapers are very enervating," he said. "I wonder what a journalist
is like? I always imagine him a person with a very large head--with the
particular sort of large head, you know, that is large because it
contains absolutely nothing."

"I thought journalists were the people who sell newspapers at the street
corners," said Lord Reggie.

"Oh! I don't fancy they are so picturesque as that," said Esme, again
suppressing a yawn. "Madame Valtesi, you ought to know; you run a
theatre, and people who run theatres always know journalists. It seems
to be in the blood."

"How can I talk?" she replied. "Don't you see that I am knitting?"

"Are you doing a stitch in time, the sort of stitch that is supposed to
rhyme with nine? I wonder why it is that we always give ourselves up to
occupations that we dislike on Sunday. I have not read a newspaper for
years. One learns so much more about what is happening in the world if
one never opens a newspaper. I once wrote an article for a newspaper,
but that was before I had met Sala. Ever since then I have been haunted
by the fear that if I did it again I might grow like him. I believe he
has lived in Mexico. His style always strikes me as decidedly Mexican. I