sort, jacket and trousers--not the 'yachting' brand; and if you paint
bring your gear. I know you speak German like a native, and that will
be a great help. Forgive this hail of directions, but I've a sort of
feeling that I'm in luck and that you'll come. Anyway, I hope you and
the F.O. both flourish. Good-bye.

Yours ever, ARTHUR H. DAVIES.

Would you mind bringing me out a _prismatic compass_, and a pound of
Raven Mixture.

This letter marked an epoch for me; but I little suspected the fact
as I crumpled it into my pocket and started languidly on the _voie
douloureuse_ which I nightly followed to the club. In Pall Mall there
were no dignified greetings to be exchanged now with well-groomed
acquaintances. The only people to be seen were some late stragglers
from the park, with a perambulator and some hot and dusty children
lagging fretfully behind; some rustic sightseers draining the last
dregs of the daylight in an effort to make out from their guide-books
which of these reverend piles was which; a policeman and a builder's
cart. Of course the club was a strange one, both of my own being
closed for cleaning, a coincidence expressly planned by Providence
for my inconvenience. The club which you are 'permitted to make use
of' on these occasions always irritates with its strangeness and
discomfort. The few occupants seem odd and oddly dressed, and you
wonder how they got there. The particular weekly that you want is not
taken in; the dinner is execrable, and the ventilation a farce. All
these evils oppressed me to-night. And yet I was puzzled to find that
somewhere within me there was a faint lightening of the spirits;
causeless, as far as I could discover. It could not be Davies's