Speaking as an impartial critic, one would incline to the opinion that Agar devoted too much thought to his work--in strong contrast, perhaps, to the literary tendency of his day. He nibbled the leisure end of his penholder too much, and allowed the business extremity thereof to dry in inky conglomeration. The result was a distinct sense of labour in the style of the work. After having called in vain, perhaps for assistance, the scribe returned to the contemplation of his latest effort. The book was one of Letts's diaries, three days in a page, which are in themselves fatal to a finished style of literature. There is always too much to say or too little. One's thoughts never fit the rhomboid apportioned by Mr. Letts for their accommodation. Great men who have thoughts when the diary is handy do not, of course, patronise Letts, because he could not be expected to know when there would be a sunset likely to stir up poetic reflections, or a moonrise comparable with the cold light cast by some unsympathetic young woman's eyes upon the poet's life. For such men, however, as Agar, Mr. Letts is a guardian angel. The space is there, and facts must be forthcoming to fill it. Agar was, and is still--thank Heaven--a conscientious man. He had promised to keep this diary and keep it he did. And surely he hath his reward--remembering the jewel drawer. At the moment under consideration he was filling in yesterday's rhomboid, and paused at the conclusion of the following remarks: “_Seven_ A.M. Turned out, and shot a Ghilzai. Saw him sneaking up the valley. Long shot--should put it down at a hundred and seventy-five yards. Hit him in the stom--abd--chest. Looked like rain until two o'clock. Then cleared up. Walter caught a mongoose and brought him in with much triumph. He got conceited afterwards and slept on my bed till kicked off by Ben Abdi. I see it's Sunday. Church four hundred odd miles away.” This, my masters, is not the stuff to quote _in extenso_, and yet in its day this diary was cried over--before it was put away in the jewel drawer. Truly women are strange--one can never tell how a thing will present itself to them. Honest Jem Agar, nibbling his penholder and jerking these lucid observations out of his military brain by mere force of discipline, never suspected the heart that was in it all--that minute particle of himself that lay in the blot in the corner carefully absorbed by the exhausted blotting-paper. “Sunday, egad!” he muttered, leaning his arms on the cunning table, and gazing out across the pine-clad valley that lay below him in a deep blue haze.