THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FAEM. 207 



to warn off the peculative wood-pigeons which, however 

 pretty individually, one doesn't care to feed in a gang ; 

 hesitating more, perhaps, in dire anticipation of that 

 ruthless torment which the razor inflicts upon the chin, 

 however much you may have prepared it by soaking or 

 adoption of other tonsorial couusel, when the man- 

 servant came running up to say that the lodge was on 

 fire ! Eh ! My eye ! and this comes of living on a hill 

 with an abundant river two hundred steep feet below, 

 along a wooded incline, but not a drop available for 

 immediate use. " Where is that extincteur ? " I ask. 

 It was down stairs ; it had never been unpacked. That 

 undertaking had been continually postponed for the 

 amusement of the next rainy day. Well, as in his 

 existing undress Mahomet could not go to the moun- 

 tain, the mountain must needs come to Mahomet, and 

 so in the course of a few moments, the man reappeared, 

 staggering under the weight of a huge package, most 

 tidily packed in brown paper, and carefully corded. 

 Being, you must know, of a thrifty nature, and remem- 

 bering Miss Edgeworth's striking anecdote of the suc- 

 cessful archer who had stored a string in his pocket, I 

 began deliberately to untie the several knots. But 

 they were more securely tied than usual, methinks, or 

 I was involuntarily nervous. Anyhow, it ended in a 

 Gordian severance by the razor that was lying open on 

 the table, much, I remember, to my increased skin- 

 torture when I came back from the open air to the use 

 of its riled edge. Then the wrappings were hastily 

 thrown off, and a gorgeously painted little metal barrel 

 stood forth, with a number of tin cases packed about 

 it, and a paper of printed directions prominently dis- 

 played, which I began at once to study, not knowing 



