I went to a local banker to change some money. He was not in his office or home, but his charming daughter was. We exchanged Christmas courtesies and coin. She said she disliked our high American exchange, the color line in United States, and praised the fact that blacks and whites in St. Lucia ate, slept and grew up together. I was sorely tried, for a long time resisted temptation, but eventually succumbed to the enticements of this Eve’s daughter. She made me drink a glass she had filled with old French rum, syrup, lime-juice and other good things. I can’t remember, except that it was eloquent of the time, place and occasion. O tempora, O mores! How blessings brighten as they take their flight. I write with a glass of water nearby, in spite of the Horatian dictum that songs are not able to live long or please that are written in draughts of water. But I am writing prose, not poetry. The guide-book asserts that “modest sleeping accommodations can be found in this island.” If so, it is one of the few places in the West Indies where, by day and night, the traveler is offered sleeping accommodations far removed from sleep or modesty. Cricket is popular in Castries, but not the bed-bug and cockroach. If one is socially inclined there is many a black beauty whose back steps “take hold on hell.” One is accosted noon and night. Boat traffic in the West Indies is not always legitimately commercial. At different isles girls come aboard to sell beads, fruit and themselves. A ship is often delayed in getting these moral derelicts and strumpet stowaways put off. Do not be surprised if at various ports, men board the ship and invite Americans going ashore for the night to come and stay with their sisters—a hospitality quite Mexican and Latin-American. This is “old stuff” to observing travelers, but not often referred to by the average writers and lecturers on the West Indies who profoundly inform you the sky is blue, the grass green and the water wet. True, but Columbus discovered that—is there nothing else to describe? * * * * * A Dog Story Two dogs, on a trip through the Minnesota woods, came upon a skunk. After considerable discussion “Little Dog” was chosen to engage the strange intruder at battle. When he returned, “Big Dog” asked him how he had fared. “Fairly well in the first round,” reported “Little Dog,” “but in the second attack the son-of-a-gun gassed me.” * * * * * A Friendly Household “A flirt, am I?” exclaimed Mary Ann, under notice to go. “Well, I knows them as flirts more than I do, and with less excuse.” She shot a spiteful look at her mistress, and added, “I’m better looking than you. More handsome… ’Ow do I know? Your husband told me so.” “That will do,” said her mistress frigidly. “But I ain’t finished yet!” retorted Mary Ann. “I can give a better kiss than you! Want to know who told me that, ma’am?” “If you mean to suggest that my husband—”