miliarly: it is the pretentious, vulgar men and females who are
horrible.

Often and often I am tempted to creep back among the lights again, and
feel the old delicate joy from cultured talk, lovely music, steady
refinement, and beauty. Then comes the reckless fit, and I am off to The
Chequers. Here is a rhyme which takes my fancy. I suppose it is my own,
but have quite forgotten:--

This is the skull of a man,
Soon shall your head be as empty:
Laugh and be glad while you can.

* * * * *

Where, from the silver that rims it,
Glows the red spirit of wine,
Once there was longing and passion,
Finding a woman divine;
Blurred is the finished design,
This was the scope of the plan:
Death, the dry Jester's old bauble--
Drink and be glad while you can.
Sorry and cynical symbol,
Ghastly old caricature,
We, too, must walk in thy footsteps,
We but a little endure.
Bah! since the end is so sure,
Let us out-frolic our span,
Death is a hush and a darkness--
Drink and be glad while you can.

A QUEER CHRISTMAS.

The Loafer seems to have fancied the company of seamen a great deal. At
The Chequers few of the saltwater fellows fore-gathered, but when they
did our Loafer was never long in picking them up. Here is one of the
yarns which he heard. It is stuck in the Diary without reference to
date, place of hearing, or anything else.

Joe Glenn used to say that the queerest Christmas Day he ever spent fell
in 1883, the year of the great gale. In that year there was cruel
trouble, and the number of folks wearing mourning that one met in Hull
and Yarmouth, and the other places, was enough to make the most
light-hearted man feel miserable. Black everywhere--nothing but black at
every turn; and then the women's faces looked so wistful, and the
children seemed so quiet, that I couldn't bear to walk the streets. The
women would question any stranger that came from the quays, and they
scorned to think that there was not always a chance for their men; but
the dead seamen were swinging about in the ooze far down under the grey
waves, and the poor souls who went gaping and gazing day after day had
all their trouble for nothing.

Glenn towed out on the 20th of October, and he cried, "Good-bye, Sal;
back for Christmas!" as they surged away toward Gorleston. Joe was mate