scene on the terrace. I tried hard and soberly. I turned the `chose
vue' over and over in my mind, day by day, and the fan-stump over and
over in my hand. But the `chose a` figurer'--what, oh what, was that?
Nightly I revisited the cafe', and sat there with an open mind--a mind
wide-open to catch the idea that should drop into it like a ripe
golden plum. The plum did not ripen. The mind remained wide-open for a
week or more, but nothing except that phrase about the sea rustled to
and fro in it.

A full quarter of a century has gone by. M. Joumand's death, so far
too fat was he all those years ago, may be presumed. A temper so
violent as Mlle. Ange'lique's must surely have brought its owner to
the grave, long since. But here, all unchanged, the stump of her fan
is; and once more I turn it over and over in my hand, not learning its
secret--no, nor even trying to, now. The chord this relic strikes in
me is not one of curiosity as to that old quarrel, but (if you will
forgive me) one of tenderness for my first effort to write, and for my
first hopes of excellence.



`HOW SHALL I WORD IT?'
1910.

It would seem that I am one of those travellers for whom the railway
bookstall does not cater. Whenever I start on a journey, I find that
my choice lies between well-printed books which I have no wish to
read, and well-written books which I could not read without permanent
injury to my eyesight. The keeper of the bookstall, seeing me gaze
vaguely along his shelves, suggests that I should take `Fen Country