"I am afraid you are in error," said the artist. "My name is Pitts.
And I don't go back beyond my grandfather, who, honest man, kept a
grocer's shop in Dulwich. The jug you've been admiring I bought in
the Caledonian Cattle Market for fifteen shillings."

Matilda swooned. The air was certainly very close down there.

* * * * *

THE WAR-DREAM.

I Wish I did not dream of France
And spend my nights in mortal dread
On miry flats where whizz-bangs dance
And star-shells hover o'er my head,
And sometimes wake my anxious spouse
By making shrill excited rows
Because it seems a hundred "hows"
Are barraging the bed.

I never fight with tigers now
Or know the old nocturnal mares;
The house on fire, the frantic cow,
The cut-throat coming up the stairs
Would be a treat; I almost miss
That feeling of paralysis
With which one climbed a precipice
Or ran away from bears.