able
reminiscences of the distinguished woman, dating back to days before the
world dreamed of what she would become, by one who played with her as a
child, doubtless would have been told, but the conductor was interrupted;
a great many people got off, some others got on the car just then, and he
went forward to collect fares from these, and the thread was broken.

At my journey's end, I recollect, I went into a public-house. There was
a person there whose presence made a deep impression upon my memory. A
fine stocky lad, with a great square jaw, heavy beery jowls, and a
blue-black, bearded chin; in a blue striped collar. He put both hands
firmly on the bar-rail at a good distance apart; straightened his arms
taut and his body at right angles with them, so that he resembled a huge
carpenter's square; then curled his back finely in, and said, with a
significant look at the man behind the bar, "Gimme one o' them shells."
A thin glass of beer was set before him; he relaxed, straightened up, and
drank off its contents. Then, apparently, feeling that he was observed,
he looked very unconcernedly all about the room and appeared to be bored.
He then examined very attentively a picture on the wall, and his neck
seemed to be temporarily stiff. I can see him now, I am happy to say, as
plain as print.

One's mind is, indeed, a grand photograph album. How precious to one it
will be when one is old and may sit all day in a house by the sea and, so
to say, turn the leaves. That is why one should be going about all the
while in one's vigour with an alert and an open mind.

Wives are picturesque characters, too. I mind me of my friend Billy
Henderson's new wife. Billy Henderson's wife looks like a balloon.
She's so fat that she has busted down the arches of her feet. In order
to "fight flesh" she walks a great deal. She walks a mile every day, and
then takes a car back home. Her father comes over from Philadelphia once
every week to see her, because she is so homesick. For months after she
was married she just cried all the time, she was so homesick. She never
goes to the movies. The movies make her cry. One time she saw at the
movies a hospital scene. It horrified her for days. A friend of hers is
about to be married. But she has told her friend that she cannot go to
the wedding. Weddings always make her cry so. She just can't read the
war news; it is too terrible; it affects her so that she can't sleep a
bit.