he lost his two assistants, both having been called up, but the
girls who had taken their places were frivolous and slow. Moreover his
errand boy had that day given notice. And, furthermore, the submarine
campaign was making it every day more difficult to keep up the stock, and
the rise in prices meant anything but the commensurate increase of profit
of which he was accused by indignant customers.

Mr. Wood, therefore, was not sorry when, the shutters up, he could retire
to his sitting-room upstairs and rest. His one hobby being reading, and his
favourite form of literature being Lives and Letters, he had normally no
difficulty in dismissing the shop from his mind. He would open the latest
memoir from the library and lose himself in whatever society it
reconstructed, political for choice. But to-night the solace could not so
easily be found. For one thing, he had no new books; for another, the cares
of business were too recent and too real.

He sank into his armchair, covered his eyes with his hand, and pondered.

Then suddenly he had an idea. If there were no letters of the Great to
read, he would himself write to the Great and thus escape grocerdom and
worry. If he were not a person of importance, he would at least pretend to
be, and thus be comforted.

Seating himself at the table and taking up his pen, he composed with
infinite care the following chapter from a biography of himself:--

The year 1916 was a comparatively uneventful one in the life of our hero.
The principal events were the marriage of his youngest daughter with the
son of the Bishop of Brighton and the rebuilding of The Towers after the
fire. Perhaps the most important of his new friends were the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY and Sir HEDWORTH MEUX, but unfortunately Sir HEDWORTH has not
kept any of the letters. Nor is there much correspondence; but a few
letters may be printed here, all testifying to the multifarious interests
of this remarkable man, who not only knew everyone worth knowing, but
projected himself into their careers with so much sympathy and keenness.
The first is to the then Prime Minister:--

_To the Right Hon. H.H. ASQUITH, M.P._

MY DEAR ASQUITH,--This is only a line to remind you that you lunch with me
at the Primrose Club on Monday at one o'clock. I have asked two or three
friends to meet you, all good fellows. With regard to that matter on which
you were asking my advice, I think that the wisest course at present is (to
use the