IT is interesting, though ill-mannered, to watch other people at a railway bookstall and guess their choice of literature from their outward appearance. Had you pursued this diversion, however, in the case of Mr. Harringay Jones as he stood before the bookstall at Paddington, you would, I fear, have been far out in your conjecture. For Mr. Jones, who had the indeterminate baldheadedness of the bank cashier and might have been anything from thirty-five to sixty, did not purchase a volume of essays or a political autobiography, but selected a flaming one-and-sixpenny narrative of spy hunts and secret service intrigue. Still, how could you have guessed that Mr. Jones's placid countenance and rotund frame concealed an imagination that was almost boyish in its unsatisfied craving for adventure? Humdrum year had succeeded humdrum year, yet he had never despaired. Some day would come that great moment when the limelight of the world's wonder would centre on him, and he would hold the stage alone. But till its arrival he consoled himself with literature and found vicarious enjoyment in the deeds of others. As long as his imagination could grow lean in its search for treasure amid Alaskan snows, he recked not if reality added an inch or two to his circumference. While he could solve, in fancy, problems that had baffled the acutest investigators, what matter if his tie-pin got mislaid? And then came war to deposit romance and adventure upon our doorsteps. Mr. Jones was agog with excitement. Espionage, treachery in high places, the hidden hand--Mr. Jones read about them all and shuddered with unholy joy. Perhaps he, an obscure cashier--who could tell? Stranger things had happened. Meanwhile he devoured all the spy literature he could find, for, as he once remarked to himself, in dealing with such gentry you have to mind your P's and QUEUX. It was his only joke. His literary choice dictated by such considerations, Mr. Jones picked his way delicately across the platforms till he reached his compartment, into the corner of which he stretched himself luxuriously and prepared to enjoy his book. Just before the train started a lady entered carrying a baby and--greatly to Mr. Jones's annoyance--took the corner seat opposite him. Being a confirmed bachelor, he had a horror of all babies, but this child in particular struck him with disfavour; seldom, he thought, had he seen such a peevish discontented expression on any human face. Close on the lady's heels followed a withered old man of the traditional professorial type, who seated himself at the other end of the compartment. Mr. Jones buried himself in his book. For once, however, the narrative failed to entertain him. Beautiful spies lavished their witchery in vain; the sagacity of the hero left him cold.