I wish also to acquaint you as President with the fact that I have lately bought the freehold of your premises. I see that there is a break in your lease at Midsummer this year on both tenants and landlords side, and therefore beg to give you this formal notice that I do not intend to renew the lease hitherto held by your Club, as I shall be using the premises for some other purpose.
Let it pour! the dining-room is the centre of all things; the ladies sip the custards and nibble the cake the gallants cram the cake and gulp the punch. The fiddler-improvisator disappears, reappears, and with crumbs on his breast and pan-gravy and punch on his breath remounts his seat; and the couples are again on the floor. The departing thunders grumble as they go, the rain falls more and more sparingly, and now it is a waltz, and now a quadrille, and now it's a reel again, with Miss Sallie or Louise or Laura or Lucille or Miss Flora "a-comin' down de lane!"Two small tables, about twelve inches high and fifteen inches square.[Pg 173] These tables held the dinner and tea service, and were removed when the meal was over.Blank & Co.
FORE:"There is a funny little islandand not so little, after all, as it is three hundred feet highthat stands right in the middle of the river at one place. They call it the Little Orphan Rock, probably because it was never known to have any father or mother. There is a temple in the side of the rock, as if a niche had been cut to receive it. Fred thinks the people who live there ought not to complain of their ventilation and drainage; and if they fell out of the front windows by any accident, they would not be worth much when picked up. Away up on the top of the rock there is a little temple that would make a capital light-house,[Pg 338] but I suppose the Chinese are too far behind the times to think of turning it to any practical use. Great Orphan Rock is farther up the river, or a little out of the river, in what they call Po-yang Lake.
A JAPANESE KITCHEN. A JAPANESE KITCHEN.Naturally I dont want to be impertinent in inquiring into your affairs, Propert, he said. Dont think that. But if I can help, let me{46} know. Going, are you? Good-bye; dont forget to order me Beardsleys Morte dArthur.Who lidee best he most catch tumble down.'There had been an outburst of derisive cheering when the Clockwork man actually commenced to run, but this now swelled up into a roar of merriment. And then Arthur saw what had happened. The Clockwork man had not stopped at the opposite wicket. He[Pg 34] had run straight on, past the wicket-keeper, past the fielders, and at the moment when Arthur spotted him he was making straight for the white sheet at the back of the ground. No wonder the crowd laughed! It was so utterly absurd; and the Clockwork man ran as though nothing could stop him, as though, indeed, he had been wound up and was without power to check his own ridiculous progress. The next moment he collided with the sheet; but even this could only prevent him from going further. His legs continued to work rapidly with the action of running, whilst his body billowed into the sagging sheet.
