For some reason not easily to be fathomed his kindly warning made me feel ashamed of my own sobriety, ashamed that I dared not 'go on the bust' with him. I firmly believe that it does a man good to 'go on the bust' occasionally. It develops fellow-feeling. And besides, who has the right to cast a stone at a man for snatching a little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not. However, he came home quite sober. 27 [Sidenote: _THE SQUARE'S AWAKENING_] Up-country, next week, I shall greatly miss my window overlooking Alexandra Square. I have lived (rebelliously) in suburban streets where only clattering feet, tradesmen's carts and pitiful street singers broke the monotony; in a Paris _chambre a garcon, au sixieme_, where the view was roofs and the noise of the city was attenuated to a murmur; in country houses which looked out on sweeps of hill, down, vale and sea, so changeable and lovely that they were dreamlike and as a dream abide in the memory.... Here I have quick human life just below my window, and--up the Gut--a view of the sea unbroken hence to the horizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls and on the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which the drifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet to and fro, and The stately ships go on To their haven under the hill. There is always, here, a sound of the sea. When, at night, the Square is still, it seems to advance, to come nearer, to be claiming one for its own. But the Square, though still at night compared with daytime, is never dead, never absolutely asleep. Fishermen returning from sea crunch on the gravel. Lights in the windows (most of the people seem to burn night lamps) give it a cosy appearance; the cats make one think that fiends are pouring out of hell, through a hole in the roadway. Peep o' day is the stillest time of all. The cats seat themselves on walls. Sparrows chirp sleepily. Some rooks and a hoary-headed jackdaw come down from the trees nearby, quarter the roadway for garbage, and fly away croaking. Busy starlings follow. If the weather is hard and fish offal scarce on the beach, the gulls will pay us a supercilious visit. About six o'clock the children begin singing in bed, and soon afterwards one hears the familiar conversation of families getting up. "Edie! what for the Lord's sake be yu doing? Yu'll catch your death o' cold. Johnnie, if yu don't make haste, I'll knock your head off, I will!" A child or two may cry, but on the whole their merriment does not seem greatly damped by their mothers' blood-curdling threats. I hear also, but not very often, the shrill wailing monotone, the weep dissolved in a shout, of a woman upbraiding her man for the previous night.