Abstinence afterwards, with their sashes and banners, marching uphill
after the band, like so many children of Hamelin after the Pied
Piper. Only, my dear Prince, what tune do you think the band was
playing? Why--

Come where the booze is cheaper,
Come where the pints hold more . . .!

The missionary, I am told, is already beginning to talk as if we
disappointed him. But this was certain to befall a man of one idea
in a place of so many varied interests.



LEGENDS.



I.--THE LEGEND OF SIR DINAR.


A puff of north-east wind shot over the hill, detached a late
December leaf from the sycamore on its summit, and swooped like a
wave upon the roofs and chimney-stacks below. It caught the smoke
midway in the chimneys, drove it back with showers of soot and
wood-ash, and set the townsmen sneezing who lingered by their hearths
to read the morning newspaper. Its strength broken, it fell prone
upon the main street, scattering its fine dust into fan-shaped
figures, then died away in eddies towards the south. Among these
eddies the sycamore leaf danced and twirled, now running along the