he hurriedly thrust the top into his pocket, and once
more joined the straining group of men. The snatched pleasure must be
put by at the call of reality; the world and its work must rush in upon
his dream. I have often thought about the top and its spinner, as I
have noted the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in the
streets,--two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes only
for each other; a student deep in his book in the corner of an omnibus;
a young mother glowing over the child in her arms; the wild-eyed
musician dreamily treading on everybody's toes, and begging nobody's
pardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with no
thought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letter
from Harry at the stage-door,--yes, if we are alone in our griefs, we
are no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in an
enchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,--as how
should they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who has
his top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is to
be tired of life, saith the preacher.

As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with a
sigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I remark on
the curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and died without a
single gipsy having heard of him, just as the expertest anglers know
nothing of Izaak Walton.

Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard Kipling,
or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is odd to think that
the last people to read such authors are the very people they most
concern. For you might spend your life, say, in studying the London
street boy, and write never so movingly and humourously about him, yet
would he never know your name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists,
it does so without knowing it,--makes them to be read in Mayfair,--just
as it never wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little milliners
and seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital and
Labour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness what
others have sown in tears.

And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make such
"art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in the next
chapter.

CHAPTER XIII

A STRANGE WEDDING

My moralisings were cut short by my entering a village, and, it being
about the hour of noon, finding myself in the thick