instructs her child. "And what do you think they was going to do there?"

"I don't know."

"They was going to see Auntie Isabel."

"And what did they do then?"

"They had dinner," she cried enthusiastically. "And do you know what they
did after dinner?"

"I don't."

"They went on the Front to see the fire-escape."

It seemed to me now that the conception was mellow, rounded and complete.
It had all the haunting mystery and romance of the sea about it. It was
reminiscent of the _Ancient Mariner_. It savoured of the books of Mr.
CONRAD. It reminded me not a little of those strange visitations which come
to quiet watering-places in the novels of Mr. H.G. WELLS. When I thought of
those seven men--one, alas, disembodied--so strangely attired yet so
careful of elementary hygiene, driven by that fierce typhoon, with that
bird of portent in the skies, arriving suddenly with the salt of their
Odyssey upon their brows at the beach of the genteel and respectable Sussex
town, and visiting a perhaps slightly perturbed Auntie Isabel, and
afterwards the fire-escape, I felt that here was the glimpse of the wild
exotic adventure for which the hearts of all of us yearn. It left the
cinema standing. It beat the magazine story to a frazzle.

"And who is the picture for, Priscilla?" I asked, when I had thoroughly