JANUARY 41 



IV 

 Somebody — probably tbat indefatigable interviewer Lord 



Mahon —once asked the Duke of Wellington why , 



s> J Momentum 



bounam 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 buUets 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 

 window-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 



