The only thing that really troubled him was loss of
spiritual communion. At five o'clock on Sunday afternoons he felt he
wanted chapel, but had to do without it. At seven he ate his simple mid-
day meal. At eleven he had tea and muffins, and at midnight he began to
crave again for hymns and sermons. At three he had a bread-and-cheese
supper, and retired early at four a.m., feeling sad and unsatisfied.

"He was essentially a man of habit."

* * * * *

The unobtrusive stranger ceased, and we sat gazing in silence at the
ceiling.

At length my friend rose, and taking half-a-sovereign from his pocket,
laid it upon the table, and linking his arm in mine went out with me upon
the deck.

THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN

You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people who are
anxious to know him.

"Now don't make a muddle of it," you say, recollectful of former mishaps,
"and come on the Wednesday."

He laughs good-naturedly as he hunts through the room for his diary.

"Shan't be able to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the Mansion
House, sketching dresses, and on Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be
at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. It's bound to be all right
this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, I'll make a note
of it on this--you can see me do it."

You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a sheet of
foolscap, and watch him pin it up over his desk. Then you come away
contented.

"I do hope he'll turn up," you say to your wife on the Thursday evening,
while dressing.

"Are you sure you made it clear to him?" she replies, suspiciously, and
you instinctively feel that whatever happens she is going to blame you
for it.

Eight o'clock arrives, and with it the other guests. At half-past eight
your wife is beckoned mysteriously out of the room, where the parlour-
maid informs her that the cook has expressed a determination, in case of
further delay, to wash her hands, figuratively speaking, of the whole
affair.

Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be eaten at all
it had better be begun. She evidently considers that in pretending to
expect him you have been merely playing a part, and that it would have
been manlier and more straightforward for you to have admitted at the
beginning that you had forgotten to invite him.

During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his unpunctuality.
By the time the _entree_