And, golf over, he liked his pipe and his glass. The "smoke and lukewarm water" mentioned in _Timon of Athens,_ Act III., Scene 6, only needs the addition of a dash of whisky to make an evening any of us might enjoy; and his words in _Anthony and Cleopatra,_ Act I., Scene 2, "We bring forth weeds when our quick minds are still," will find an echo in many a chest. In this connection it might be noted that he took an occasional holiday in France. That at least seems a reasonable assumption when so keen a smoker cries, as he does in _The Merchant of Venice,_ Act III., Scene 1, "I have another bad match." * * * * * A VAGRANT. The humble bee No skep has he, No twisted, straw-thatched dome, A ferny crest Provides his nest, The mowing-grass his home. The crook-beaked shrike His back may spike And pierce him with a thorn; The humble bee A tramp is he And there is none to mourn. O'er bank and brook, In wooded nook, He wanders at his whim, Lives as he can, Owes naught to man, And man owes naught to him. No hive receives The sweets he gives, No flowers for him are sown, Yet wild and gay He hums his way, A nomad on his own. * * * * * THE SUFFERER. Having engaged a sleeping-berth I naturally hurried, coin in hand, to the conductor, as all wise travellers do (usually to their discomfiture), to see if I could be accommodated with a compartment to myself and be guaranteed against invasion. The carriage was full. I then sought my compartment, to learn the worst as to my position, whether above or below the necessarily offensive person who was to be my companion. He was already there, and we exchanged the hard implacable glare that is reserved among the English for the other fellow in a wagon-lit compartment. When I discovered that to him had fallen the dreaded upper berth I relaxed a little, and later we were full of courtesies to each other--renunciations of hat-pegs, racks and so forth, and charming mutual concessions as to the light, which I controlled from below--so that by morning we were so friendly that he deemed me a fit recipient of his Great Paris Grievance. This grievance, which he considered that everyone should know about, bears upon the prevalence of spurious coins in the so-called Gay City and the tendency of Parisians to work them off on foreigners. As he says, a more inhospitable course one cannot conceive. Foreigners in Paris should be treated as guests, and just now, with all this Entente talk, the English especially. But no. It is the English who are the first victims of the possessor of obsolete francs, two-franc and five-franc pieces guiltless of their country's silver and ten-franc pieces into whose composition no gold has entered.