No More Learning

So, we formed up, six couples in all, and went back two by two; Saumarez
walking at the side of Edith Copleigh, who was riding his horse.

The air was cleared; and little by little, as the sun rose, I felt we
were all dropping back again into ordinary men and women and that
the "Great Pop Picnic" was a thing altogether apart and out of the
world--never to happen again. It had gone with the dust-storm and the
tingle in the hot air.

I felt tired and limp, and a good deal ashamed of myself as I went in
for a bath and some sleep.

There is a woman's version of this story, but it will never be written.
. . . unless Maud Copleigh cares to try.




THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES.

Thus, for a season, they fought it fair--
She and his cousin May--
Tactful, talented, debonnaire,
Decorous foes were they;
But never can battle of man compare
With merciless feminine fray.
--Two and One.

Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story to
prove this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please.
Pluffles was a subaltern in the "Unmentionables. " He was callow, even
for a subaltern. He was callow all over--like a canary that had not
finished fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three times as much
money as was good for him; Pluffles' Papa being a rich man and Pluffles
being the only son. Pluffles' Mamma adored him. She was only a little
less callow than Pluffles and she believed everything he said.

Pluffles' weakness was not believing what people said. He preferred what
he called "trusting to his own judgment. " He had as much judgment as he
had seat or hands; and this preference tumbled him into trouble once or
twice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about at
Simla--some years ago, when he was four-and-twenty.

He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the result
was that, after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's
'rickshaw wheels.

There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.

She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's girl's
head--to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth inches high.
She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs.