The steamers, resounding like gigantic tuning-forks, state the old old fact--how there is a sea coldly, greenly, swaying outside.

But nowadays it is the thin voice of duty, piping in a white thread from the top of a funnel, that collects the largest multitudes, and night is nothing but a long-drawn sigh between hammer-strokes, a deep breath--you can hear it from an open window even in the heart of London.
But who, save the nerve-worn and sleepless, or thinkers standing with hands to the eyes on some crag above the multitude, see things thus in skeleton outline, bare of flesh?
In Surbiton the skeleton is wrapped in flesh.
"The kettle never boils so well on a sunny morning," says Mrs.Grandage, glancing at the clock on the mantelpiece.

Then the grey Persian cat stretches itself on the window-seat, and buffets a moth with soft round paws.

And before breakfast is half over (they were late today), a baby is deposited in her lap, and she must guard the sugar basin while Tom Grandage reads the golfing article in the "Times," sips his coffee, wipes his moustaches, and is off to the office, where he is the greatest authority upon the foreign exchanges and marked for promotion.

The skeleton is well wrapped in flesh.