* * * * * Illustration: BRAVO, BELGIUM! * * * * * VOLUMES. All books should be in one volume. I always thought so, but now I know. The reason why I know is because I possess two or three thousand books, and I have recently moved into a new house, and the books were at first put on the shelves indiscriminately as they came out of the packing cases. And how better spend a wet bank holiday than in arranging them properly--bringing parted couples together, adjusting involuntary divorces, reuniting the separated members of families and tribes? This is the merciful work on which Parolles and I have been engaged for too long. (I call her Parolles because she is so fond of words of which neither the meaning nor pronunciation has quite been mastered.) We meet each other all over the house with pathetic inquiries, "Have you seen Volume IV. of _Dumas' Memoirs_?" "No, but have you noticed Volume I. of _Fors Clavigera_?" It is like a game of "Families." The worst of the game is that one cannot concentrate. I may ascend the stairs bent wholly upon securing Volume III. of PROTHERO AND COLERIDGE'S _Byron_, and then chancing to observe Volume II. of INGPEN'S _Boswell_ I leap at it in ecstasy and, forgetting all about the noble misanthrope, hasten back with this prize and join it to its lonely mate. My _Dictionary of National Biography_, for all its fifty-eight volumes, not counting Supplements or Errata, was simple, on account of its size and unusual appearance. But what word can I find to express the annoyance and trouble given us by a small Pope in sheepskin? We roamed the house together--there are shelves in every room--striving to collect this family; but three of them are still on the loose. There is a Balzac, too, in a number of volumes not mentioned on any title-page and not numbered individually, so that time alone can tell whether that group is ever fully assembled. But as we placed them side by side we could almost hear them sigh after their long separation--though whether with satisfaction or annoyance who shall say? Volumes, may be, can get as tired of their companions as human beings can. During such an occupation as this a vast deal of time vanishes also in trying to remember where it was that I saw that copy of _Friendship's Garland_, so as to place it with the other Arnolds. Even more time goes in dipping into books which I had clean forgotten I possessed, such as _The Cricketers' Manual_, by "Bat," in which my eyes alighted upon this excellent story: