AN lATERCEPTED LETTER. 



■// 



tapioca pudding. I turn my back upon the window and 

 take my dinner and a book together. =:= * ■'• 



After dinner I sat at the window to watch for the 

 arrival of the mail cart, and to look at the rain which was 

 coming down in a thoroughly sulky fashion. Still, when 

 it does not pour cats and dogs here one considers the day 

 as almost fine, so I ought not to grumble. The mail 

 arrived about two o'clock, and created a vast excitement 

 in the place. There were horses to change, parcels to 

 deliver, and passengers to alight for refreshment, to say 

 nothing of the letter-bag, in which was centred my chief 

 interest. I did not think much of the passengers to-day. 

 The ladies looked as if they had bought their dresses 

 ready-made, and the men were attired in different 

 varieties of what some third-rate tailor would advertise as 

 " Fashionable Travelling Costumes," i.e., last year's clothes 

 dipped in a glue-pot and then rolled in bran till they all 

 look like a collection of peripatetic meal bags. The 

 other day a German professor came in the car. He was 

 little and fat, and had a moon-face polished by much 

 yellow soap and good humour. He wore long hair and 

 spectacles, and looked as if he were dressed by contract, 

 his clothes were so badly made. He discoursed volubly 

 in broken English to the landlord just outside my open 

 window, and I discovered that he was mad on the subject 

 of jelly-fishes ! I was actually comforted to find that 

 there was a deeper depth, and a lower hobby even than 

 fishing. 



Presently my letters came, and for the next ten 

 minutes I was lost to the miseries of my position. I was 



