. The dinner vanishes from the table,
and you wake up next morning feeling very glad when you remember you can
stop an hour longer in bed. And the vision of an editor is at hand to
hint that these reminiscences must not prove an exception to the general
rule, but must also come to a conclusion.

[Illustration]

THE IDLERS CLUB

Is Childhood the Happiest or the most Miserable Period of One's
Existence?

[Sidenote: G. R. Sims says it depends upon the child.]

It depends so much upon the child. As a child, my greatest delight was
to give swagger dinner parties to my brothers and sisters in the nursery
on winter afternoons, when we could not go out. The principal delicacy
in these entertainments was an orange _sorbet_ specially prepared by my
own hands. Here is the recipe. Squeeze into a small cup the juice of
half an orange, fill up with snow, scraped from the outside window sill,
and serve cold. Now, although the preparation of this delightful
delicacy gave me an immense amount of happiness, I could rarely induce
any grown-up people to partake of it. Then there was a wine which always
graced the table at our nursery feasts. We called it currant wine, and
made it by putting a handful of grocer's currants into a wineglass,
filling up with cold water, and stirring the mixture up with a piece of
firewood until the liquid was a rich brown. I have often, in later life,
paid fifteen shillings for a bottle of champagne, and not felt half so
happy over it as I used to be over a teaspoonful of our own home-made
currant wine. In these matters childhood _was_ the happiest period of my
life. With regard to the enjoyment of "games," I never played many as a
child, but as a man I have derived the greatest possible pleasure from
them. I never learned to skip till I was thirty, and at thirty-five my
greatest delight was a game of battledore and shuttlecock. Now that I am
turned forty I have given up violent exercise, and taken to playing with
boxes of bricks and tin soldiers. I am sure that I am far happier with
them, now, than I was as a child. In my old nursery days I always
quarrelled with my brothers and sisters about our toys, and we
generally finished up by throwing them at each other. Now I can sit on
the floor in the long winter evenings and perform the most wonderful
architectural feats with my box of bricks, and nobody thinks of
interfering with me. With my soldiers, too, I am much happier. I can
place the French a