And that is why I welcome the intelligence that the Picards have taken over nothing from us but our pickles, and that the French travellers on the P.L.M. still insist on keeping the window up. Let our enthusiasts for a uniform world ponder these facts. And it is a relief to think that they can never unify national landscapes. The village green, the cottage gardens, the chalk downs, the chines, the red coombs will always be English. The long straight _route nationale_ and the skinny fowls that are always straying across it, the poplar-bordered streams, the trim vines ranked along the hill-side, the heavily-accoutred gendarme and the fat farmer in the stiff indigo blouse hobnobbing at the _estaminet_, these will always be French. Oh, but I would give something to see that indigo blouse again, and have a morning chat with the farmer! “Hé! père Martin, ça va toujours bien? Pas mal, m’sieu. Et la récolte? Dame! je ne m’en plains pas ... à la votre, m’sieu!” They may take our pickles, if they will, but let them remain themselves, our old French friends. THE BUSINESS MAN It is not easy for the slave of “copy,” sedentary and shy, to know that triumphant figure of the active, bustling world, the business man. The business man is too busy, and can only be seen in office hours, when the scribe is correcting proofs or, perhaps, not yet up. Nevertheless, I once nearly saw the Governor of the Bank of England. I hold the Governor to be the archetype of the business man. In my green unknowing youth I used to take the gentleman in cocked hat and picturesque robe at the Threadneedle Street entrance for the Governor, but now know better. Well, I once nearly saw the Governor. It was on the stage. Mr. Gerald du Maurier was in the bank-parlour when a servant entered and said: “The Governor of the Bank of England to call on you, sir.” “Show him in,” said Mr. du Maurier with the easy _nonchalance_ of which only actors have the secret. It was a tremendous moment. I seemed to hear harps in the air. And just then, down came the curtain! It was felt, no doubt, that the Governor of the Bank of England ought not to be made a motley to the view. But I was inconsolable. I had been robbed of my one chance of seeing the supreme business man.