others, who had run off also, then came back with a big cabbage-leaf
filled with strawberries, some of them barely ripe, and said as she
set them on the table, "There, now; I thought of that before I got up
this morning; but looking at the stranger here getting into your
boat, Dick, put it out of my head; so that I was not before ALL the
blackbirds: however, there are a few about as good as you will get
them anywhere in Hammersmith this morning."

Robert patted her on the head in a friendly manner; and we fell to on
our breakfast, which was simple enough, but most delicately cooked,
and set on the table with much daintiness. The bread was
particularly good, and was of several different kinds, from the big,
rather close, dark-coloured, sweet-tasting farmhouse loaf, which was
most to my liking, to the thin pipe-stems of wheaten crust, such as I
have eaten in Turin.

As I was putting the first mouthfuls into my mouth my eye caught a
carved and gilded inscription on the panelling, behind what we should
have called the High Table in an Oxford college hall, and a familiar
name in it forced me to read it through. Thus it ran:


"Guests and neighbours, on the site of this Guest-hall once stood the
lecture-room of the Hammersmith Socialists. Drink a glass to the
memory! May 1962."


It is difficult to tell you how I felt as I read these words, and I
suppose my face showed how much I was moved, for both my friends
looked curiously at me, and there was silence between us for a little