And indeed I was well aware of my short-comings. “The Rabbit Fanciers’ Gazette,” with which, as every schoolboy knows, is incorporated “The Mouse Breeders’ Record,” could hardly have had a more unsuitable editor than I. To this day, I confess, I hardly know the right end of a rabbit from the wrong. Mr. Bosk was a survivor from the grand old days of Mr. Parfitt, the founder and for thirty years the editor of the Gazette. “Mr. Parfitt, sir,” he used to tell me every now and then, “was a _real_ fancier.” His successor, by implication, was not. It was at the end of the war. I was looking for a job—a job at the heart of reality. The illusory nature of the position had made me decline my old college’s offer of a fellowship. I wanted something—how shall I put it?—more palpitating. And then in _The Times_ I found what I had been looking for. “Wanted Editor of proved literary ability for livestock trade paper. Apply Box 92.” I applied, was interviewed, and conquered. The directors couldn’t finally resist my testimonial from the Bishop of Bosham. “A life-long acquaintance with Mr. Chelifer and his family permits me confidently to assert that he is a young man of great ability and high moral purpose. (signed) Hartley Bosh.” I was appointed for a probationary period of six months. Old Mr. Parfitt, the retiring editor, stayed on a few days at the office to initiate me into the secrets of the work. He was a benevolent old gentleman, short, thick and with a very large head. His square face was made to seem even broader than it was by the grey whiskers which ran down his cheeks to merge imperceptibly into the ends of his moustache. He knew more about mice and rabbits than any man in the country; but what he prided himself on was his literary gift. He explained to me the principles on which he wrote his weekly leaders. “In the fable,” he told me, smiling already in anticipation of the end of this joke which he had been elaborating and polishing since 1892, “in the fable it is the mountain which, after a long and, if I may say so, geological labour, gives birth to the mouse. My principle, on the contrary, has always been, wherever possible, to make my mice parturiate mountains.” He paused expectantly. When I had laughed, he went on. “It’s astonishing what reflections on life and art and politics and philosophy and what not you can get out of a mouse or a rabbit. Quite astonishing!” The most notable of Mr. Parfitt’s mountain thoughts still hangs, under glass and in an Oxford frame, on the wall above the editorial desk. It was printed in the Rabbit Fancier for August 8, 1914.