f an hour we
allotted to lunch and the other two hours was spent in visiting the
bookshops of Albany, which are many and good. We wonder if any
Albany booksellers chance to recall a sudden flash of colour that
came, moved along the shelves, and was gone? We remember half a
dozen book stores that we visited; we remember them just as well as
if it were yesterday, and we remember the great gusto and bright
cheer of the crowds of shoppers, already doing their Christmas
pioneering. We remember also that three of the books we bought (to
give away) were McFee's "Aliens" and Frank Adams's "Tobogganing on
Parnassus," yes, and Stevenson's "Lay Morals." Oh, a great day! And
we remember the ride from Albany to Kingston, with the darkening
profile of the Catskills on the western side of the train, the tawny
colours of the fields (like a lion's hide), the blue shadows of the
glens, the sparkling Hudson in quick blinks of brightness, the lilac
line of the hills when we reached Kingston in the dusk. We remember
the old and dilapidated theatre at Kingston, the big shabby dressing
rooms of the men, with the scribbled autographs of former mummers on
the walls. And that night we said good-bye to our little play, whose
very imperfections we had grown to love by this time, and took the
3:45 A.M. milk train to New York. We slept on two seats in the
smoker, and got to Weehawken in the brumous chill of a winter
dawn--still wearing our tie. Now can Pete Corcoran wonder why we are
fond of it, and why, ever and anon, we get it out and wear it in
remembrance?

[Illustration]

THE CLUB OF ABANDONED HUSBANDS

AJAX: Hullo, Socrates, what are you doing patrolling the streets at
this late hour? Surely it would be more seemly to be at home?

SOCRATES: You speak sooth, Ajax, but I have no home to repair to.

AJAX: What do you mean by that?

SOCRATES: In the sense of a place of habitation, a dormitory, of
course I still have a home; but it is merely an abandoned shell, a
dark and silent place devoid of allure. I have sent my family to the
seashore, good Ajax, and the lonely apartment, with all the blinds
pulled down and nothing in the icebox, is a dismal haunt. That is
why I wander upon the highway.

AJAX: I, too, have known that condition, Socrates. Two years ago
Cassandra took the children to the mountains for July and August;
and upon my word I had a doleful time of it. What do you say, shall
we have recourse to a beaker of ginge