To enjoy the humour of an incident one must be at some distance from it either in time or relationship. I remember watching an amusing scene in Whitefield Street, just off Tottenham Court Road, one winter’s Saturday night. A woman—a rather respectable looking woman, had her hat only been on straight—had just been shot out of a public-house. She was very dignified, and very drunk. A policeman requested her to move on. She called him “Fellow,” and demanded to know of him if he considered that was the proper tone in which to address a lady. She threatened to report him to her cousin, the Lord Chancellor. “Yes; this way to the Lord Chancellor,” retorted the policeman. “You come along with me;” and he caught hold of her by the arm. She gave a lurch, and nearly fell. To save her the man put his arm round her waist. She clasped him round the neck, and together they spun round two or three times; while at the very moment a piano-organ at the opposite corner struck up a waltz. “Choose your partners, gentlemen, for the next dance,” shouted a wag, and the crowd roared. I was laughing myself, for the situation was undeniably comical, the constable’s expression of disgust being quite Hogarthian, when the sight of a child’s face beneath the gas-lamp stayed me. Her look was so full of terror that I tried to comfort her. “It’s only a drunken woman,” I said; “he’s not going to hurt her.” “Please, sir,” was the answer, “it’s my mother.” Our joke is generally another’s pain. The man who sits down on the tin-tack rarely joins in the laugh. ON THE MINDING OF OTHER PEOPLE’S BUSINESS I WALKED one bright September morning in the Strand. I love London best in the autumn. Then only can one see the gleam of its white pavements, the bold, unbroken outline of its streets. I love the cool vistas one comes across of mornings in the parks, the soft twilights that linger in the empty bye-streets. In June the restaurant manager is off-hand with me; I feel I am but in his way. In August he spreads for me the table by the window, pours out for me my wine with his own fat hands. I cannot doubt his regard for me: my foolish jealousies are stilled. Do I care for a drive after dinner through the caressing night air, I can climb the omnibus stair without a preliminary fight upon the curb, can sit with easy conscience and unsquashed body, not feeling I have deprived some hot, tired woman of a seat. Do I desire the play, no harsh, forbidding “House full” board repels me from the door. During her season, London, a harassed hostess, has no time for us, her intimates. Her rooms are overcrowded, her servants overworked, her dinners hurriedly cooked, her tone insincere. In the spring, to be truthful, the great lady condescends to be somewhat vulgar—noisy and ostentatious. Not till the guests are departed is she herself again, the London that we, her children, love.