JANUARY 41 



IV 



Somebody probably that indefatigable interviewer Lord 

 Mahon once asked the Duke of Wellington why mej itum 

 Souham did not press him more closely in that versus 

 terrible retreat from Bourgos in 1812, during 

 which, out of a total of about 31,000 men, he lost 7000 by 

 disease, straggling, and desertion. 'Because,' he replied, 

 ' the French had learned that our bullets were not made 

 of butter ! ' No doubt they were very awkward ' pats,' 

 those terrible leaden spheres, weighing twelve to the 

 pound, which Brown Bess spread with such deadly result 

 up to her effective range of a little over one hundred yards, 

 and the lesson had been read to French conscripts upon 

 many a bloody field. What would have been the bill of 

 mortality had these bullets really been made of butter ? 

 An idle question, it may seem, yet one upon which I was 

 set cogitating the other day by a singular incident. 



Returning one evening to my own house, I noticed a 

 large round hole in the plate-glass window of the library, 

 as if a football had been driven through it. There were 

 no boys about, or the cause might have been such as 

 saute aux yeux. Upon reaching the library I found the 

 floor covered with shattered glass, showing that the impact 

 had been from the outside, but nothing was visible within 

 to account for it. The hole in the plate-glass was round 

 and clean; the remainder of the sheet was firm in the 

 windoAv-frame. 



More puzzled than ever, I summoned my better half to 

 discuss the problem. She, being of a practical turn, 

 began looking under the furniture for the agent of de- 

 struction; while I stood idle, considering such search 



