they mean?"

"I am just going to explain," I said stiffly.

* * * * *

"Or perhaps I had better put it this way," I said ten minutes later.
"Supposing--Oh, Margery, it is difficult to explain."

"I must know," said Margery.

"Why do you want to know so badly?"

"I want to know a million million times more than anything else in the
whole world."

"Why?"

"So as I can tell Angela," said Margery.

I plunged into my explanation again. Angela is three, and I can quite
see how important it is that she should be sound on the question.

LIFE'S LITTLE TRAGEDIES

X. A CROWN OF SORROWS

There is something on my mind, of which I must relieve myself. If I am
ever to face the world again with a smile I must share my trouble with
others. I cannot bear my burden alone.

Friends, I have lost my hat. Will the gentleman who took it by mistake,
and forgot to leave his own in its place, kindly return my hat to me at
once?

I am very miserable without my hat. It was one of those nice soft ones
with a dent down the middle to collect the rain; one of those soft hats
which wrap themselves so lovingly round the cranium that they ultimately
absorb the personality of the wearer underneath, responding to his every
emotion. When people said nice things about me my hat would swell in
sympathy; when they said nasty things, or when I had had my hair cut, it
would adapt itself automatically to my lesser requirements. In a word,
it fitted--and that is more than can be said for your hard, unyielding
bowler.

My hat and I dropped into a hall of music one night last week. I placed
it under the seat, put a coat on it to keep it warm, and settled down to
enjoy myself. My hat could see nothing, but it knew that it would hear
all about the entertainment on the way home. When the last moving
picture had moved away, my hat and I prepared to depart together. I drew
out the coat and felt around for my--Where on earth....

I was calm at first.

"Excuse me," I said politely to the man next to me, "but have you got
two hats?"

"Several," he replied, mistaking my meaning.

I dived under the seat again, and came up with some more dust.

"Some one," I said to the programme girl, "has taken my hat."

"Have you looked under the seat for it?" she asked.

It was such a sound suggestion that I went under the seat for the third
time.

"It may have been kicked further along," suggested another attendan