He opened a mahogany cupboard, which contained shelves stacked with sheets of skin and bark. He took down a bundle of these and laid them on the table.

"These are my own little attempts, including the history. You'll find a good number of early poetic effusions among them. This kind of thing." He handed Mr. Thinkwell a poem called Wakefulness, which began,—

"I wake and hear the amorous tortoise cry;
The ripe nuts tumble thudding from the tree;
I watch the moon, an evil golden eye,

Stare wanly at me o'er the purple sea."

It had eight stanzas.

Mr. Thinkwell read it

through, and laid it down without comment.

"An early effort," said Hindley, "and probably written after an evening of intemperance. A little morbid, you are thinking."

"Not at all," said Mr. Thinkwell. "A little commonplace, perhaps, as young people's verse is apt to be. I am very much interested to see it."

Slightly nettled, but still bland and well bred, Hindley gave him some of his own essays to read. These Mr. Thinkwell found better. Hindley had a gay, amusing pen; his descriptions were entertaining and his comments apt. A tendency to a rather Petronian wit was held in check by a natural well-bred discretion. The same qualities marked the Satiric History, in which Mr. Thinkwell found a good deal of entertainment and interest. Decidedly Hindley Smith-Rimski had talent, for all his foppish airs.

Mr. Thinkwell's pleasure in his prose consoled the author for his lack of appreciation of his verse, and put him in a very good humour over supper, which

they had before Mr. Thinkwell went on to read the other literature in the library. After the elegant and delicious repast had been consumed, and its indications removed by a beautifully trained young Zachary Macaulay, host and guest settled down to smoke, sip a pleasant liquor, and read.

The literature was a miscellaneous collection of short and long stories, verse (for the most part either merely conventional or shockingly bad, but here and there having originality and occasionally some beauty or charm), and long or short prose essays. There were some political writings. One revolutionary poem, dated 1910 and signed "Michael Conolly," began"Orphans, arise! throw off the tyrants' yoke,” and ended-"To that great day when Smiths shall be no more."

"My unfortunate brother-in-law," said Hindley, "was always rather a politician than a poet-though not very successful even in that capacity, as you know. See, here are some samples of our most modern verse-the kind the young men and women are writing to-day."

...

The most modern verse had a good deal of swing and tune about it, and less of the moralising of much of the earlier poetry, which was still under the influence of Dr. Watts. Its most marked characteristic was a peculiar habit of ending in the middle of a sentence, "so as to avoid the obvious," Hindley explained. "Do young English poets adopt that device? Your son Charles is a poet, I hear. I am anxious to make his acquaintance."

"Yes, I believe Charles writes verse, among other things. I read very little modern verse, but I fancy it is not, for the most part, much like this. Charles will be able to tell you better as to that. . . . Have

you, by the way, that curious branch of literature, the novel?"

"Nothing so long as to be called that, if Wuthering Heights is the standard. There are difficulties as to writing materials, you see. The serial stories written daily on the shore are pretty long sometimes, but they are rubbed out when read."

"An excellent idea, indeed. Sand is a most appropriate material, and should be more widely used." "Have you many novels?"

"I believe a very great many indeed." "And are they good reading?"

"Roughly speaking, no. But no worse, I imagine, than most short stories, verse, or plays."

“Ah, plays we don't have here. My old grandmamma has always forbidden them, on moral grounds." "Moral? Why so?"

"Oh, I can't explain grandmamma's notions. The old lady has always been rather mad, I fancy. Anyhow, plays are wicked, and players worse, so we have had no drama in our island home. We amuse ourselves in the evening by dancing, or games, or telling stories. Perhaps, if you feel you have sampled enough of our literature for the moment, you would like to stroll out and watch some of these innocent entertainments.

3

They strolled out into the dark, warm, close-growing woods, into which the low moon scarcely looked. They followed the thin path until they came out on to the open glade which ran round the wood's edge above the shore. Here lights burned, and people sat about in groups, talking and playing games or telling stories. The largest group sat round a little old Jewess; her

cracked voice rose high and excited, her withered hands gesticulated as she told her tale, which seemed to be of the penny dreadful type.

"A great story-teller, old Leah," Hindley said. "Look, there is your son, with Flora."

True enough, Flora and Charles sat together on the edge of the group round Leah.

"Peter will be jealous," said Hindley, "if your Charles steals his Flora from him like this. They've been together all day, those two."

Charles looked round and saw his father.

"Where are William and Rosamond, Charles?" "Gone out spearing fish in the lagoon, with a fisherman they've picked up with. You should come and listen to this; it's worth it."

Mr. Thinkwell stood and listened. Hindley strolled away.

The high old voice rose and fell, cracked and quavered and shrilled, above the murmur of the sea and the soft ruffle of the wind in the palms.

CHAPTER XX

ISLAND DAYS

I

To Nogood Peter Conolly, apathetically working in his dentist's tent, fiercely painting pictures, patiently searching for new colours in shells and flowers and shrubs, these days after the landing of the Thinkwells became gradually filled with an odd, new, and very bitter pain, a pain which seared even the joyful prospect of the new life which had so suddenly and amazingly opened before him; a pain which deepened and intensified day by day, and to which he foresaw no end.

Flora had left him for Charles Thinkwell: that was how it appeared to him. She was with Charles Thinkwell all day, every day; that he loved her any one could see; that she, if she did not love him (and whom, thought Peter bitterly, did Flora love, beyond herself?) meant to have him, seemed only too likely. She was caught, he supposed, by the novelty of Charles, by the glamour of strangeness he carried, the romantic aroma of Europe and London; she, who was sick of the tediousness of island life, and had always longed for the world beyond, might well be ensnared by these. No doubt, too, she would like the position he could offer her; like to appear in London town as the affianced wife of a fashionable young Londoner. Yet, was Charles fashionable? After all, thought Peter sulkily, he was but a writer, and writing, Rosamond had said, was not very Smith.

But still, there it was. Peter seldom got speech