wly, and with a broad smile he wrung the magistrate
by the hand.

"Don't do it again. It's too risky," said he. "The swine would score
heavily if you were taken."

"You're a good chap, Barker," said the magistrate. "No, I won't do it
again. Who's the fellow who talks of 'one crowded hour of glorious
life'? By George! it's too fascinating. I had the time of my life! Talk
of fox-hunting! No, I'll never touch it again, for it might get a grip
of me."

A telephone rang sharply upon the table, and the baronet put the receiver
to his ear. As he listened he smiled across at his companion.

"I'm rather late this morning," said he, "and they are waiting for me to
try some petty larcenies on the county bench."

III. A POINT OF VIEW

It was an American journalist who was writing up England--or writing her
down as the mood seized him. Sometimes he blamed and sometimes he
praised, and the case-hardened old country actually went its way all the
time quite oblivious of his approval or of his disfavour--being ready at
all times, through some queer mental twist, to say more bitter things and
more unjust ones about herself than any critic could ever venture upon.
However, in the course of his many columns in the _New York Clarion_ our
journalist did at last get through somebody's skin in the way that is
here narrated.

It was a kindly enough article upon English country-house life in which
he had described a visit paid for a week-end to Sir Henry Trustall's.
There was only a single critical passage in it, and it was one which he
had written with a sense both of journalistic and of democratic
satisfaction. In it he had sketched off the lofty obsequiousness of the
flunkey who had ministered to his needs. "He seemed to take a smug
satisfaction in his own degradation," said he. "Surely the last spark of
manhood must have gone from the man who has so entirely lost his own
individuality. He revelled in humility. He was an instrument of
service--nothing more."

Some months had passed and our American Pressman had recorded impressions
from St. Petersburg to Madrid. He was on his homeward way when once
again he found himself the guest of Sir Henry. He had returned from an
afternoon's shooting, and had finished dressing when there was a knock at
the door and the footman entered. He was a large cleanly-built man, as
is proper to a class who are chosen with a keener eye to physique than
any crack regiment. The A