him that our position was not so desperate as it might seem, I took the
earliest opportunity to mention that I was going away early next morning.
In the tone of his "Oh, are you?" he tried bravely to imply that he was
sorry, even now, to hear that. In a way, perhaps, he really was sorry. We
had got on so well together, he and I. Nothing could efface the memory
of that. Nay, we seemed to be hitting it off even now. Influenza was not
our sole theme. We passed from that to the aforesaid weekly review, and
to a correspondence that was raging therein on faith and reason.

This correspondence had now reached its fourth and penultimate
stage--its Australian stage. It is hard to see why these correspondences
spring up; one only knows that they do spring up, suddenly, like street
crowds. There comes, it would seem, a moment when the whole
English-speaking race is unconsciously bursting to have its say about
some one thing--the split infinitive, or the habits of migratory birds, or
faith and reason, or what-not. Whatever weekly review happens at such
a moment to contain a reference, however remote, to the theme in
question reaps the storm. Gusts of letters come in from all corners of the
British Isles. These are presently reinforced by Canada in full blast. A
few weeks later the Anglo-Indians weigh in. In due course we have the
help of our Australian cousins. By that time, however, we of the mother
country have got our second wind, and so determined are we to
make the most of it that at last even the editor suddenly loses patience
and says, "This correspondence must now cease.--Ed." and wonders why
on earth he ever allowed anything so tedious and idiotic to begin.

I pointed out to Laider one of the Australian letters that had
especially pleased me in the current issue. It was from "A Melbourne
Man," and was of the abrupt kind which declares that "all your
correspondents have been groping in the dark" and then settles the whole