here are, it appears, sixteen bed-rooms in the house, independently of servants' rooms.

The question is, How shall we decide?

Happy Thought.—Toss up.

We do so. The “odd man” to toss again, and so on. I am the last odd man. Boodels chooses the room with the stain on the floor. He says he prefers it. We drive back to Station. Thoughtful and sleepy journey.

Chilvern is to arrange all details as to fitting up and furnishing. This, he says, he can do, inexpensively and artistically, in a couple of weeks' time.

Milburd points out clearly to us that the old woman in charge evidently doesn't want to be turned out, and so invented the ghost. We all think it highly probable, except Boodels, who says he doesn't see why there shouldn't be a ghost. We don't dispute it.

The next thing is to make up a party. Cazell tells us “what we ought to do.” “We ought,” he says, “to form ourselves into a committee, and ask so many people.”

We meet in the evening to choose our party. Rather difficult to propose personal friends, whom every one of us will like. We agree that we must be outspoken, and if we don't like a guest proposed, we must say so, and, as it were, blackball him.

Or her?—This remark leads to the question, Are there to be any ladies? Boodels says decidedly, Yes.

Chilvern, putting it artistically, says, “We want a bit of colour in a house like that.”

Cazell wants to know who is to be the host. Boodels proposes me.

I accept the position; but what am I exactly? that's what I must clearly understand.

Milburd explains—a sort of president of a Domestic Republic.

Very good. Then how about the ladies?

Chilvern says we must have a hostess. We all suppose, doubtfully, that we must. I ask, Won't that interfere with our arrangements?

Boodels replies, that “we can't have any arrangements without a hostess.” He says, after some consideration, that he has got a Grandmother who might be useful. Chilvern, deferentially, proposes an Aunt of his own, but does not, as it were, press her upon us, on account of some infirmities of temper. I've got a half-sister who was a widow about the time I was born, and if she's not in India.... On the whole we think that if Boodels would have no objection to his grandmother coming.....

“Not in the least,” says Boodels. “I think she can stand a fortnight of it or so.”

Carried nem. con. Boodels' grandmother to be lent for three weeks, and to be returned safely.

Happy Thought (to suggest to ladies).—Why shouldn't there be a sisterhood of chaperons? Let somebody start it. “Oh!” says a young lady, “I can't go there wherever it is, because I can't go alone, and I haven't got a chaperon.”

Now carry out the idea. The young lady goes to The Home (this sort of establishment is always a Home—possibly because people to be hired are never not at home),—well, she goes to the Home, sees the lady superioress or manageress, who asks her what sort of a chaperon she wants. She doesn't exactly know; but say, age about 50, cheerful disposition, polished manners.

Good. Down comes photograph book.

Young lady inspects chaperons and selects one.

She comes downstairs. “Is she,” asks the lady manageress, “to be dressed for evening or for day, a fÊte or for what?”

Well then, that's all settled.

Terms, so much an hour, and something for herself. What the French call a pour boire. This is a genuinely good idea, and one to be adopted, I am sure. What an excellent profession for ladies of good family and education, of a certain age, and an uncertain income.

They might form a Social Beguinage, on the model of the one at Ghent. No vows. All sorts of dresses. All sorts of feeding. Respectable address. And a Home.

Boodels' grandmother, it turns out, is deaf.

Here again what a recommendation for a chaperon! and how very few employments are open to deaf people. No harmless, bodily ailment would disqualify, except a violent cold and sneezing.

A chaperon with a song: useful. Consider this idea in futuro. Put it down and assist the others in our list.

We ought to make our company a good salad.

I propose my friend, Jenkyns Soames.

Jenkyns Soames is a scientific man.

“We mustn't be dull,” says Boodels, which I feel is covertly an objection to my friend. Chilvern says that he thinks we ought to have an old man.

What for?

Well, ... he hesitates, then says, politely, that with all young ones, won't Mrs. Boodels be rather dull?

(Happy Thought.—Old man for Mrs. Boodels, to talk to her through her ear-trumpet.)

Boodels says, “Oh, no! his grandmother's never dull.”

Milburd observes, that this choosing is like making up characters for a play. He takes in a theatrical newspaper, and proposes that we should set down what we want, after the style in which the managers frame their advertisements.

Wanted.—A First Old Man. Also A Leading Heavy. He proposes “Byrton—Captain Byrton. He was in a dragoon regiment.”

Happy Thought.—Good for “Leading Heavy.”

Milburd's man is Byrton. Mine is Soames. I have an instinctive dislike to Byrton, I don't know why, perhaps because I perceive a certain amount of feeling against Soames.

Boodels' Proposal.—That we should meet once a week to determine whose invitations should be renewed, and whose congÉ should be given.

As President I say, “Well, but I can't tell our guests that they must go.”

Cazell strikes in, “I tell you what we ought to do—only ask everyone for a week, and then, if we like them, we can ask 'em to stop on.”

Agreed.—That we take these matters into weekly consideration.

Milburd wishes to know who is to order dinner every day.

Happy Thought.—Take it in turn, and I'll begin as President.

Boodels, when this has been agreed to, says that we ought to have good dogs about and outside a large house like that.

I tell them that there is one—a very fierce beast.

Boodels says he's sure I must be mistaken, as they went all over the house, and there was only a little snarling, growling puppy making darts at a mouse, or a rat, which he saw moving behind some door which was locked.

[Happy Thought.—Keep the facts to myself. Only a Puppy! and I thought it was a mastiff! [Good name, by the way, for a novel—Only a Puppy.] If I'd shaken that door again, then they could have let me out.]

We've all got dogs, except myself. I have, I say, my eye on a dog. I remember some one promising me a clever poodle a year ago. Will think who it was, and call on him.

Cazell is of opinion that we ought to wear some peculiar sort of dress, and call ourselves by some name.

Happy Thought.—Why not be an Order?

Someone is just going to speak, when I beg his pardon, and say, “Look here!” I am