Page:Tex; a chapter in the life of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos (IA texchapterinlife00mcke).pdf/200



''railway-train, with a whiskered and spectacled judge of the high court, in the opposite seat. I remember old Day's teaching me how to observe whether one were going up hill or down by watching the roadside rills:''

"Water invariably flows downwards," said he, gravely

''Ecclefechan I don't know and don't want to; Carlisle, I do; Gretna Green I do: I never want to set eyes on either again. I have a desolating memory of brown fields between Carlisle and Gretna Green. By now you have, I expect, seen as much of England as you wish to see in the course of your natural life''

To-day, seized with a sudden lech for art and beauty, my wiff and I are going to Hammersmith to hear The Beggar's Opera

I have again lost your waybill, he writes, 16. 9. 21, and cannot tell if this will still find you at Glow-worm Castle.

The Beggar's Opera was a great affair.

Little has happened to me since.

But to-day Mrs. Asquith and her daughter are coming to play different forms of the game of auction bridge at the Cleveland Club.

''And to-morrow ah, to-morrow! To-morrow I am going to stay for the week-end with a hostess, at or near Marlow, whose name''