132 TRAMPS 



revolt against social rites and ceremonial observances 

 for your liver is touched and your nerves are unstrung 

 you contrast the Boccaccio-like licence of the tinker's 

 banquet, within those flowing tapestries of rustling 

 leaves, on those velvety carpets of grass and wild 

 thyme, and under the blue canopies of heaven, with 

 even the bachelor freedom of the club dining- hall that 

 looks out on the shadier pavement of Pall Mall to 

 say nothing of the smothering City chop-house, with 

 its unctuous vapours of cuts from the joint. Feather- 

 beds and curtains have their charms, no doubt, in a 

 climate so chilly as our own ; but when you have 

 passed the vigorous freshness of maturity, you begin 

 to find out that they are unfavourable to flirtations 

 with sleep after the long crush of the crowded drawing- 

 room even after a bout of whist and sherry in soda 

 in the more ample space of the club smoking-room. 

 And you dream that sleep would come stealing to your 

 arms unbidden, could you but throw yourself down 

 under those strips of dirty canvas, to be lulled by the 

 hooting of the owls and the droning rattle of the 

 night-jars. 



