but, being cheap, and easily grown on any patch of ground, it has become a tyrannical habit with the careless caterer. The English custom is to serve it in a sodden condition with some sodden boiled potatoes. The really bad hotel serves cabbage and potatoes in this soaked and savorless state twice daily, and its manager regards you as an incipient maniac if you resent his ghastly notions of a vegetable. There ought to be a roll of repute drawn up for all hotels and restaurants which never admit cabbage and never serve boiled potatoes after the summer. But, until a great popular revolt against cabbage has been instigated, I cannot offer much hope to the visitor that he will be able to miss this abomination. In the spring the kind of caterer who serves cabbage follows it up with rhubarb as a sweet. Miss this, though it should involve a state of semi-starvation. One of the greatest malefactors of all time was he who first thought of eating the vile fiber of the rhubarb stalk. Medicinal it may be, but missed it must be by all who have a civilized palate. The American who wants to do England a service should lead a riot when the cabbage and rhubarb appear.

Tremble, too, at the words "ye olde" and shun the half-timbered house on which it is written. For that timber may be only modernity's planks plastered upon some Victorian stone or jerry-builder's composition. If you want to see genuine timbering go to Cheshire-there is little worth missing in that county but where the mock-Cheshire is on view, in southern shires with bogus antique lettering, turn in flight

swiftly and surely. There has been a growing pest of sham antique in England and the Tudor tea-shop is a plague that spreads. Bear in mind that where the architecture is a fraud the food will be likewise. Be suspicious of the “arty" sign—it has crept lately even into the loveliest nooks of the Cotswolds-and of the curio shop which admits "ye" to its vocabulary. Finally, the best English friend for the American traveler is the man who knows where to leave the high street for the low. For England is a land of secret pleasures; it likes high walls and closed doors and does not always spread its good sights and good company abroad. Thus the happy tourist is he who has friendly introductions to corridors and crannies and unpretentious company. When the familiar antiquities and resorts are bidding for his profitable patronage, let him remember that a chance acquaintance with a communicative friend may reveal the hidden treasure in unsuspected quarters. Thus may the journeyman even escape boiled cabbage. But I offer no hope of that. Even the most knowledgable natives have failed on that adventure. Still there are many splendors to be won by the traveler who has the courage and the craft to miss the obvious. As a preparatory course for an English visit learn to be suspicious. A true miss is as good as many miles of routine visitation and almost any little neglected country town is a palimpsest in brick and stone for those who have an eye. Escapes are as valuable as encounters and the true traveler in these days of push and publicity is also an artful dodger.

O

WING to an alarming shortage of men to replenish her vanquished army, the small Kingdom of Loveana had resorted to polygamy. The innovation, approved as a righteous necessity by the patriotic inhabitants, accomplished its purpose. Within a quarter-century Loveana had a wonderful young army.

Loveana's previous wars had been chiefly of a predatory nature. But a progressing world now frowned upon such conflicts, and the wonderful young army, deprived of a natural outlet for its exuberance, was murmuring rebelliously against the polygamous law, approved in principle but found to be personally inconvenient. For army pay is proverbially inadequate and King Borel's hint of a subsidy for the conscripted men had not materialized.

One year previous the Young Woman's Party had been organized to bring about the end of polygamy. It had failed to attain its object, but had given fresh impetus to the rapidly growing movement for the emancipation of women. Yet, paradoxically, it was really the women who reëstablished monogamy, the cost of silk lingerie being incompatible with army pay.

For King Borel, grown old in a

school of statecraft in which women were negligible factors, had smiled skeptically at the activities of the Young Woman's Party. But the threatened mutiny in his wonderful young army was something at which not even a king could afford to smile. King Borel abolished polygamy by royal decree.

An enlightened sovereign, King Borel was ever mindful of the welfare of his male subjects. In abolishing polygamy, while stipulating that every husband should retain one wife, the King placed no restrictions upon his choice. But he provided suitable pensions for the old wives who would thus find themselves put aside.

Some degree of emotional stress of course resulted from the enforced wifely hejira. But women of a polygamous nation are inured to emotional stress. It was observed that many of the old wives accepted the situation and their pensions with marked fortitude.

The economic feature of polygamy had weighed lightly upon the wellto-do nobility. The younger generation of noblemen had been reared to think of matrimony in terms of wives. When polygamy was unexpectedly abolished several young nobles were caught on the point of

taking unto themselves yet another wife.

Among these inconveniently placed gentlemen was Captain Roderick Seggrick.

Captain Roderick was the oldest son of Sir Jon Seggrick and his polygamous consort Marthe. Two years before he had wooed and married the handsome Lady Cathel, the capable leader of the Young Woman's Party. Lady Cathel was devoted to her husband, whose passion for her, however, had been short-lived.

King Borel's mandate abolishing polygamy was simultaneously released to the press throughout the Kingdom. The following morning Lady Cathel entered their charming breakfast-room to find her husband frowning savagely into his morning paper. But on reading her own paper -being the kind of a wife who has one-Lady Cathel smiled happily. "Isn't it wonderful?" she exclaimed. "Isn't what wonderful?" growled her husband.

"Then polygamy is a matter of— the cost of buttered cinnamon toast?" asked his wife, with lifted eyebrow. Lady Cathel's habit of lifting a skeptical eyebrow increasingly irritated Captain Roderick.

"With the lower classes, it is." The brow went higher. "But with the nobility-even a senile King might have had enough sense to see how awkward it might be for some of us, coming without warning."

Lady Cathel's eyebrow came down abruptly. Her brown eyes widened. "You don't mean-awkward-for you! Roderick!"

Her husband nodded. Lady Cathel sat motionless, her habit of emotional control standing her in good stead. Presently she asked quietly, "Why?"

"Why not? It was the law, wasn't it?"

"Isn't it time men came out from behind the law and dealt with women honestly?"

"Honestly! What more honest.

Lady Cathel poured herself another cup of tea. "Regardless of its equity?"

"Certainly. People naturally fall into groups, entailing inequality. Few laws apply to all groups with equal justice. That doesn't make it less obligatory to obey them-for the common good."

"Then I am to infer," asked Lady Cathel, "that even noblemen in awkward positions will obey the new law-for the common good?"

Her husband frowned. "Certainly I shall obey it. But I must tell you that I consider myself bound in honor to keep my plighted troth."

"His plighted troth!" thought

Lady Cathel's face whitened. Her hand trembled. Resolutely, the capable leader of the Young Woman's Party sprinkled cinnamon on her buttered toast.

"But Roderick, a civil law that runs counter to a moral one, as did the law enforcing polygamy, is unethical. Doesn't it follow that a sense of honor such a law engenders will also be unsound?"

"A law essential to the welfare of a nation can not be unethical," retorted Captain Roderick. "It's only you new women with your ridiculous ideas about sex equality who find it so. I was only complying with the law. I'm not to blame if the King puts me in a mess, am I?"

"Of course not, dear. It was very thoughtless of the King."

The tense silence was broken by Lady Cathel. "I wonder what will happen when women begin to pass laws to justify their conduct, as men always have done. When they do, we women are going to have a perfectly corking time, don't you think?" Captain Roderick regarded her critically. "Have you any idea how you have changed since we were married?" he asked.

"When a husband asks that question, it only means his love has

"Fond of me! I'd like to know what a man is to think when his wife makes him so ridiculous that every buck private in his regiment grins behind his back! Running all over the Kingdom, making silly speeches, demanding the vote, demanding this, that, and the other. Had you cared for me you'd have stayed home."

Lady Cathel did not reply. Presently she said, "Then I infer my successor is the sit-by-the-fire sort?" "She is! One emancipated woman in a man's house is enough!"

"Poor dear, he didn't mean to be funny," she mused. Then aloud: "I quite agree with you, dear. Does your peculiar sense of honor permit you telling me who-she is?"

Captain Roderick pushed back his chair abruptly. He rose. "Talk about women being our moral superiors! I'd like to know what a man is to think when his own wife sneers at his honor!" At the door he turned. "She is General Polock's daughter. And she understands me. Aphro will see at once that I am bound to herin honor."

"No doubt she will," said Lady Cathel, but her words were lost as her husband slammed the door behind him.

Alone, her face twisted into a wry smile. "The times are out of joint with a vengeance," she thought. "As a wronged wife I should have been the one to slam that door. Is Roderick's slam symptomatic of the age? Is the future going to be noisy with the slammed doors of unemancipated husbands?"

Aphro Polock! Lady Cathel knew her slightly as a member of a manner

less young set to whom one said "good afternoon" and passed on to more interesting contacts.

"I'll not decide anything until I see her," she reflected. "And I may as well see her at once." Ringing the bell, she ordered her motor.

2

Aphro in bed breakfasted late on two cigarettes and a tangerine. She was deep in the details of the King's mandate as set forth in her morning paper when Lady Cathel's card was brought to her. Making herself an attractive picture among her rosecolored pillows, Aphro said she would receive her visitor at once. When Lady Cathel entered, Aphro regarded her from under heavy lids.

"Bonjour, ma chère," she cried. "Are you come to congratulate or to dismember-me?"

Lady Cathel's eyebrow shot up. "Ought I to do either?"

"Reprove me gently if I'm rude, but I thought I had stolen your husband."

"Does one steal-gifts?"

Aphro lit a cigarette. "Now I'll ask one. Are gifts left lying around loose? Some girl was bound to find Roderick. It happened to be me." She regarded Lady Cathel through a cloud of smoke-rings. "You're one of these intelligent, emancipated women, aren't you? I've noticed they're not very successful in keeping a husband in tow."

"Then you expect to-tow Roderick?"

"Well," answered Aphro, "I see by the paper that it's a free country again-for women."

"It is. And we emancipated women did a good bit to make it so. First wives again have rights. You

may think you have a claim on Roderick. But I shall not give him a divorce unless I'm convinced that you will make him happy. If I am unconvinced-"

"Sad!" said Aphro. "In that case, I'll make him happy anyway."

Lady Cathel was plainly startled. "You are without honor?"

"Honor!" Aphro sat up in bed quickly. "Does an honorable woman keep a husband against his will? I'd like to know what you emancipated women mean by honor! I've listened to your speeches. You demand political equality, sex equality, the right to live your own emotional life. You can't have them without going into the moral market-place and upsetting the rickety old apple-cart that men call female chastity. But when I go a-marketing and pick up a nice red apple for myself, you shout 'dishonorable!' Were you, then, fighting merely for-phrases?"

"You talk like a fool," exclaimed Lady Cathel, in anger. "If you—”

"On the contrary," interrupted Aphro, "my words drip such wisdom that Solomon seems a dud. In your battle for freedom you militant women left your artillery all over the field. You can't blame me if I use one of your own machine-guns to rout you with.”

"Really, you're unique," said Lady Cathel. "You're the first camp-follower I've known.'

"It will take more than a raised eyebrow to dislodge me, ma chère. But you're 'all wet.' I'm not unique. Rather, I'm a logical byproduct of your movement to emancipate women. And I dare say there are two of us for every new woman afraid to follow her own instruction."