Alas! no restaurant in London Can make us feel that thrill again; Though what they do or what leave undone I often ask, and ask in vain. Is it the sauce which puts the brand of Cam on Each maddening dish? The egg? The yellow glaze? The cucumber? The special breed of salmon?-- I only know we loved, we _loved_ that Mayonnaise! * * * * * "Did Beauty," some may ask severely, "Visit him in no other guise? It cannot be that salmon merely Should bring the mist before his eyes! What of the river there where Byron's Pool lay, The warm blue morning shimmering in the haze?" Not this (I say) ... Yet something else ... _Creme Brûlée_! Ye gods! to think of that _and_ Salmon Mayonnaise! THE PROBLEM OF LIFE The noise of the retreating sea came pleasantly to us from a distance. Celia was lying on her--I never know how to put this nicely--well, she was lying face downwards on a rock and gazing into a little pool which the tide had forgotten about and left behind. I sat beside her and annoyed a limpet. Three minutes ago I had taken it suddenly by surprise and with an Herculean effort moved it an eighteenth of a millimetre westwards. My silence since then was lulling it into a false security, and in another two minutes I hoped to get a move on it again. "Do you know," said Celia with a puzzled look on her face, "sometimes I think I'm quite an ordinary person after all." "You aren't a little bit," I said lazily; "you're just like nobody else in the world." "Well, of course, you had to say that." "No, I hadn't. Lots of husbands would merely have yawned." I felt one coming and stopped it just in time. Waiting for limpets to go to sleep is drowsy work. "But why are you so morbid about yourself suddenly?" "I don't know," she said. "Only every now and then I find myself thinking the most _obvious_ thoughts." "We all do," I answered, as I stroked my limpet gently. The noise of our conversation had roused it, but a gentle stroking motion (I am told by those to whom it has confided) will frequently cause its muscles to relax. "The great thing is not to speak them. Still, you'd better tell me now. What is it?" "Well," she said, her cheeks perhaps a little pinker than usual, "I was just thinking that life was very wonderful. But it's a _silly_ thing to say." "It's holiday time," I reminded her. "The need for sprinkling our remarks with thoughtful words like 'economic' and 'sporadic' is over for a bit. Let us be silly." I scratched in the rock the goal to which I was urging my limpet and took out my watch. "Three thirty-five. I shall get him there by four." Celia was gazing at two baby fishes who played in and out a bunch of sea-weed. Above the seaweed an anemone sat fatly.