There were a number of carved stone figures placed at intervals along the parapets of the old Cathedral; some of them represented angels, others kings and bishops, and nearly all were in attitudes of ...

Artemus Gibbon was, by nature and inclination, blameless and respectable, and under happier circumstances the record of his life might have preserved the albino tint of its early promise; but he was o...

The Cricks lived at Toad-Water; and in the same lonely upland spot Fate had pitched the home of the Saunderses, and for miles around these two dwellings there was never a neighbour or a chimney or eve...

Scene⁠—Clare Market, Saturday evening. Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Hooper discovered shopping. Mrs. H.: Well meanin’, no doubt of it, but hawful hignorant. I was chatting discursive like to ’er about them ear...

I did it⁠—I who should have known better. I persuaded Reginald to go to the McKillops’ garden-party against his will. We all make mistakes occasionally. “They know you’re here, and they’ll think it so...

I wish it to be distinctly understood (said Reginald) that I don’t want a “George, Prince of Wales” Prayerbook as a Christmas present. The fact cannot be too widely known. There ought (he continued) t...

The little stone Saint occupied a retired niche in a side aisle of the old cathedral. No one quite remembered who he had been, but that in a way was a guarantee of respectability. At least so the Gobl...

“One goes to the Academy in self-defence,” said Reginald. “It is the one topic one has in common with the Country Cousins.” “It is almost a religious observance with them,” said the Other. “A kind of ...

“I’m writing a poem on Peace,” said Reginald, emerging from a sweeping operation through a tin of mixed biscuits, in whose depths a macaroon or two might yet be lurking. “Something of the kind seems t...

“Never,” wrote Reginald to his most darling friend, “be a pioneer. It’s the Early Christian that gets the fattest lion.” Reginald, in his way, was a pioneer. None of the rest of his family had anythin...

“After all,” said the duchess vaguely, “there are certain things you can’t get away from. Right and wrong, good conduct and moral rectitude, have certain well-defined limits.” “So, for the matter of t...

The drawback is, one never really knows one’s hosts and hostesses. One gets to know their fox-terriers and their chrysanthemums, and whether the story about the go-cart can be turned loose in the draw...

A figure in an indefinite tweed suit, carrying brown-paper parcels. That is what we met suddenly, at the bend of a muddy Dorsetshire lane, and the roan mare stared and obviously thought of a curtsey. ...

I have (said Reginald) an aunt who worries. She’s not really an aunt⁠—a sort of amateur one, and they aren’t really worries. She is a social success, and has no domestic tragedies worth speaking of, s...

“A most variable climate,” said the duchess; “and how unfortunate that we should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear! So distressing for the poor.” “Someone has observed th...

There was once (said Reginald) a woman who told the truth. Not all at once, of course, but the habit grew upon her gradually, like lichen on an apparently healthy tree. She had no children⁠—otherwise ...

Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact. “One of these days,” he said, “I shall write a really great drama....

I’m not going to discuss the Fiscal Question (said Reginald); I wish to be original. At the same time, I think one suffers more than one realises from the system of free imports. I should like, for in...

They say (said Reginald) that there’s nothing sadder than victory except defeat. If you’ve ever stayed with dull people during what is alleged to be the festive season, you can probably revise that sa...

The other day (confided Reginald), when I was killing time in the bathroom and making bad resolutions for the New Year, it occurred to me that I would like to be a poet. The chief qualification, I und...

Reginald slid a carnation of the newest shade into the buttonhole of his latest lounge coat, and surveyed the result with approval. “I am just in the mood,” he observed, “to have my portrait painted b...

Reginald sat in a corner of the princess’s salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm ...

Egbert came into the large, dimly lit drawing-room with the air of a man who is not certain whether he is entering a dovecote or a bomb factory, and is prepared for either eventuality. The little dome...

The Minister for Fine Arts (to whose Department had been lately added the new subsection of Electoral Engineering) paid a business visit to the Grand Vizier. According to Eastern etiquette they discou...

The opening of a large new centre for West End shopping, particularly feminine shopping, suggests the reflection, Do women ever really shop? Of course, it is a well-attested fact that they go forth sh...

The prison Chaplain entered the condemned’s cell for the last time, to give such consolation as he might. “The only consolation I crave for,” said the condemned, “is to tell my story in its entirety t...

Laploshka was one of the meanest men I have ever met, and quite one of the most entertaining. He said horrid things about other people in such a charming way that one forgave him for the equally horri...

“There is a wild beast in your woods,” said the artist Cunningham, as he was being driven to the station. It was the only remark he had made during the drive, but as Van Cheele had talked incessantly ...

Mrs. Jallatt’s young people’s parties were severely exclusive; it came cheaper that way, because you could ask fewer to them. Mrs. Jallatt didn’t study cheapness, but somehow she generally attained it...

“The Major is coming in to tea,” said Mrs. Hoopington to her niece. “He’s just gone round to the stables with his horse. Be as bright and lively as you can; the poor man’s got a fit of the glooms.” Ma...

Vanessa Pennington had a husband who was poor, with few extenuating circumstances, and an admirer who, though comfortably rich, was cumbered with a sense of honour. His wealth made him welcome in Vane...

Major Richard Dumbarton. Mrs. Carewe. Mrs. Paly-Paget. Scene⁠—Deck of eastward-bound steamer. Major Dumbarton seated on deck-chair, another chair by his side, with the name “Mrs. Carewe” painted on it...

Theodoric Voler had been brought up, from infancy to the confines of middle age, by a fond mother whose chief solicitude had been to keep him screened from what she called the coarser realities of lif...

The grillroom clock struck eleven with the respectful unobtrusiveness of one whose mission in life is to be ignored. When the flight of time should really have rendered abstinence and migration impera...

It was a chill, rain-washed afternoon of a late August day, that indefinite season when partridges are still in security or cold storage, and there is nothing to hunt⁠—unless one is bounded on the nor...

It was in the second decade of the twentieth century, after the Great Plague had devastated England, that Hermann the Irascible, nicknamed also the Wise, sat on the British throne. The Mortal Sickness...

The Gräfin’s two elder sons had made deplorable marriages. It was, observed Clovis, a family habit. The youngest boy, Wratislav, who was the black sheep of a rather greyish family, had as yet made no ...

On the rack in the railway carriage immediately opposite Clovis was a solidly wrought travelling-bag, with a carefully written label, on which was inscribed, “J. P. Huddle, The Warren, Tilfield, near ...

Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and effete, and counted for little, but his opin...

“That woman’s art-jargon tires me,” said Clovis to his journalist friend. “She’s so fond of talking of certain pictures as ‘growing on one,’ as though they were a sort of fungus.” “That reminds me,” s...

An unwonted peace hung over the Villa Elsinore, broken, however, at frequent intervals, by clamorous lamentations suggestive of bewildered bereavement. The Momebys had lost their infant child; hence t...

His baptismal register spoke of him pessimistically as John Henry, but he had left that behind with the other maladies of infancy, and his friends knew him under the front-name of Adrian. His mother l...

Arlington Stringham made a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintent...

Octavian Ruttle was one of those lively cheerful individuals on whom amiability had set its unmistakable stamp, and, like most of his kind, his soul’s peace depended in large measure on the unstinted ...

“It would be rather nice if you would put Clovis up for another six days while I go up north to the MacGregors’,” said Mrs. Sangrail sleepily across the breakfast-table. It was her invariable plan to ...

Although he was scarcely yet out of his teens, the Duke of Scaw was already marked out as a personality widely differing from others of his caste and period. Not in externals; therein he conformed cor...

“I want to marry your daughter,” said Mark Spayley with faltering eagerness. “I am only an artist with an income of two hundred a year, and she is the daughter of an enormously wealthy man, so I suppo...

“All hunting stories are the same,” said Clovis; “just as all Turf stories are the same, and all⁠—” “My hunting story isn’t a bit like any you’ve ever heard,” said the baroness. “It happened quite a w...

Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease, an ease alike of body and soul, in the little patch of ground, half-orchard and half-garden, that abutted on the farmyard at Mowsle Barton. After the stress and noise ...

A strange stillness hung over the restaurant; it was one of those rare moments when the orchestra was not discoursing the strains of the Ice-cream Sailor waltz. “Did I ever tell you,” asked Clovis of ...

It was Mrs. Packletide’s pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger. Not that the lust to kill had suddenly descended on her, or that she felt that she would leave India safer and more whole...

It was distinctly hard lines for Lady Barbara, who came of good fighting stock, and was one of the bravest women of her generation, that her son should be so undisguisedly a coward. Whatever good qual...

In the fading light of a close dull autumn afternoon Martin Stoner plodded his way along muddy lanes and rut-seamed cart tracks that led he knew not exactly whither. Somewhere in front of him, he fanc...

It was the eve of the great race, and scarcely a member of Lady Susan’s house-party had as yet a single bet on. It was one of those unsatisfactory years when one horse held a commanding market positio...

“I want you to help me in getting up a dramatic entertainment of some sort,” said the baroness to Clovis. “You see, there’s been an election petition down here, and a member unseated and no end of bit...

Clovis sat in the hottest zone but two of a Turkish bath, alternately inert in statuesque contemplation and rapidly manoeuvring a fountain-pen over the pages of a notebook. “Don’t interrupt me with yo...

In an age when it has become increasingly difficult to accomplish anything new or original, Bavton Bidderdale interested his generation by dying of a new disease. “We always knew he would do something...

“Heavens!” exclaimed the aunt of Clovis, “here’s someone I know bearing down on us. I can’t remember his name, but he lunched with us once in town. Tarrington⁠—yes, that’s it. He’s heard of the picnic...

Sylvia Seltoun ate her breakfast in the morning-room at Yessney with a pleasant sense of ultimate victory, such as a fervent Ironside might have permitted himself on the morrow of Worcester fight. She...

In the morning-room of his sister-in-law’s house Groby Lington fidgeted away the passing minutes with the demure restlessness of advanced middle age. About a quarter of an hour would have to elapse be...

“Who and what is Mr. Brope?” demanded the aunt of Clovis suddenly. Mrs. Riversedge, who had been snipping off the heads of defunct roses, and thinking of nothing in particular, sprang hurriedly to men...

“Tell me a story,” said the baroness, staring out despairingly at the rain; it was that light, apologetic sort of rain that looks as if it was going to leave off every minute and goes on for the great...

The baroness and Clovis sat in a much-frequented corner of the Park exchanging biographical confidences about the long succession of passersby. “Who are those depressed-looking young women who have ju...

In a first-class carriage of a train speeding Balkanward across the flat, green Hungarian plain two Britons sat in friendly, fitful converse. They had first foregathered in the cold grey dawn at the f...

Lady Carlotta stepped out on to the platform of the small wayside station and took a turn or two up and down its uninteresting length, to kill time till the train should be pleased to proceed on its w...

It was Reggie Bruttle’s own idea for converting what had threatened to be an albino elephant into a beast of burden that should help him along the stony road of his finances. “The Limes,” which had co...

“It’s not the daily grind that I complain of,” said Blenkinthrope resentfully; “it’s the dull grey sameness of my life outside of office hours. Nothing of interest comes my way, nothing remarkable or ...

Regularly once a year, somewhere about the first week in February, Mrs. Pendercoet was wont to apply to her friends and acquaintances for a character. Not the sort of character which guarantees an app...

“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.” Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct somethi...

The farmhouse kitchen probably stood where it did as a matter of accident or haphazard choice; yet its situation might have been planned by a master-strategist in farmhouse architecture. Dairy and pou...

“I suppose we shall never see Wilfred Pigeoncote here now that he has become heir to the baronetcy and to a lot of money,” observed Mrs. Peter Pigeoncote regretfully to her husband. “Well, we can hard...

It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., was aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. A long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had...

“The outlook is not encouraging for us smaller businesses,” said Mr. Scarrick to the artist and his sister, who had taken rooms over his suburban grocery store. “These big concerns are offering all so...

In a forest of mixed growth somewhere on the eastern spurs of the Carpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the r...

In the gathering twilight Richard Duncombe rode a tired horse through a seemingly endless succession of fields in what he guessed to be a more or less homeward direction. After the crowd and movement ...

The great galleon lay in semi-retirement under the sand and weed and water of the northern bay where the fortune of war and weather had long ago ensconced it. Three and a quarter centuries had passed ...

Mona had always regarded herself as cast for the tragic role; her name, her large dark eyes, and the style of hairdressing that best suited her, all contributed to support that outlook on life. She wo...

“You’ve just come back from Adelaide’s funeral, haven’t you?” said Sir Lulworth to his nephew; “I suppose it was very like most other funerals?” “I’ll tell you all about it at lunch,” said Egbert. “Yo...

Norman Gortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to a strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park railings, and the Row fronting him across a wide stretch of carriage drive. Hyde Park Corn...

The season of strikes seemed to have run itself to a standstill. Almost every trade and industry and calling in which a dislocation could possibly be engineered had indulged in that luxury. The last a...

The enemy had declared “no trumps.” Rupert played out his ace and king of clubs and cleared the adversary of that suit; then the Sheep, whom the Fates had inflicted on him for a partner, took the thir...

Sir Lulworth Quayne sat in the lounge of his favourite restaurant, the Gallus Bankiva, discussing the weaknesses of the world with his nephew, who had lately returned from a much-enlivened exile in th...

Moung Ka, cultivator of rice and philosophic virtues, sat on the raised platform of his cane-built house by the banks of the swiftly flowing Irrawaddy. On two sides of the house there was a bright-gre...

“The Smithly-Dubbs are in town,” said Sir James. “I wish you would show them some attention. Ask them to lunch with you at the Ritz or somewhere.” “From the little I’ve seen of the Smithly-Dubbs I don...

Sir Lulworth Quayne was making a leisurely progress through the Zoological Society’s Gardens in company with his nephew, recently returned from Mexico. The latter was interested in comparing and contr...

“You are not really dying, are you?” asked Amanda. “I have the doctor’s permission to live till Tuesday,” said Laura. “But today is Saturday; this is serious!” gasped Amanda. “I don’t know about it be...

Leonard Bilsiter was one of those people who have failed to find this world attractive or interesting, and who have sought compensation in an “unseen world” of their own experience or imagination⁠—or ...

“There is a back way on to the lawn,” said Mrs. Philidore Stossen to her daughter, “through a small grass paddock and then through a walled fruit garden full of gooseberry bushes. I went all over the ...

On a late spring afternoon Ella McCarthy sat on a green-painted chair in Kensington Gardens, staring listlessly at an uninteresting stretch of park landscape, that blossomed suddenly into tropical rad...

“I’ve asked Latimer Springfield to spend Sunday with us and stop the night,” announced Mrs. Durmot at the breakfast-table. “I thought he was in the throes of an election,” remarked her husband. “Exact...

It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to the registration of one’s vote, believin...

“War is a cruelly destructive thing,” said the Wanderer, dropping his newspaper to the floor and staring reflectively into space. “Ah, yes, indeed,” said the Merchant, responding readily to what seeme...

Luitpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self-important scale, sat in his favoured café in the world-wise Habsburg capital, confronted with the Neue Freie Presse and the cup...

“Dora Bittholz is coming on Thursday,” said Mrs. Sangrail. “This next Thursday?” asked Clovis. His mother nodded. “You’ve rather done it, haven’t you?” he chuckled; “Jane Martlet has only been here fi...

“I hope you’ve come full of suggestions for Christmas,” said Lady Blonze to her latest arrived guest; “the old-fashioned Christmas and the up-to-date Christmas are both so played out. I want to have s...

“Are there any old legends attached to the castle?” asked Conrad of his sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical f...

It was the season of sales. The august establishment of Walpurgis and Nettlepink had lowered its prices for an entire week as a concession to trade observances, much as an Archduchess might protesting...

“I’ve just been to see old Betsy Mullen,” announced Vera to her aunt, Mrs. Bebberly Cumble; “she seems in rather a bad way about her rent. She owes about fifteen weeks of it, and says she doesn’t know...

“It’s a good thing that Saint Valentine’s Day has dropped out of vogue,” said Mrs. Thackenbury; “what with Christmas and New Year and Easter, not to speak of birthdays, there are quite enough remembra...

Basset Harrowcluff returned to the home of his fathers, after an absence of four years, distinctly well pleased with himself. He was only thirty-one, but he had put in some useful service in an out-of...

Sophie Chattel-Monkheim was a Socialist by conviction and a Chattel-Monkheim by marriage. The particular member of that wealthy family whom she had married was rich, even as his relatives counted rich...

“Is matchmaking at all in your line?” Hugo Peterby asked the question with a certain amount of personal interest. “I don’t specialise in it,” said Clovis; “it’s all right while you’re doing it, but th...

“Ronnie is a great trial to me,” said Mrs. Attray plaintively. “Only eighteen years old last February and already a confirmed gambler. I am sure I don’t know where he inherits it from; his father neve...

Marion Eggelby sat talking to Clovis on the only subject that she ever willingly talked about⁠—her offspring and their varied perfections and accomplishments. Clovis was not in what could be called a ...

The hunting season had come to an end, and the Mullets had not succeeded in selling the Brogue. There had been a kind of tradition in the family for the past three or four years, a sort of fatalistic ...

“Has it ever struck you,” said Vera Durmot to Clovis, “that one might make a comfortable income by compiling a local almanac, on prophetic lines, like those that the general public buy by the half mil...

“I’m in a frightful position,” exclaimed Mrs. Duff-Chugleigh, sinking into an armchair and closing her eyes as though to shut out some distressing vision. “Really? What has happend?” said Mrs. Pallits...

“It’s like a Chinese puzzle,” said Lady Prowche resentfully, staring at a scribbled list of names that spread over two or three loose sheets of notepaper on her writing-table. Most of the names had a ...

A “mixed double” of young people were contesting a game of lawn tennis at the Rectory garden party; for the past five-and-twenty years at least mixed doubles of young people had done exactly the same ...

It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller ...

Kenelm Jerton entered the dining-hall of the Golden Galleon Hotel in the full crush of the luncheon hour. Nearly every seat was occupied, and small additional tables had been brought in, where floor s...

“You look worried, dear,” said Eleanor. “I am worried,” admitted Suzanne; “not worried exactly, but anxious. You see, my birthday happens next week⁠—” “You lucky person,” interrupted Eleanor; “my birt...

The children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace. Only that morning he had refused to eat his wholesome bread-and...

Alicia Pevenly sat on a garden seat in the rose-walk at Chopehanger, enjoying the valedictory mildness of a warm October morning, and experiencing that atmosphere of mental complacency that descends o...

Teresa, Mrs. Thropplestance, was the richest and most intractable old woman in the county of Woldshire. In her dealings with the world in general her manner suggested a blend between a Mistress of the...

Treddleford sat in an easeful armchair in front of a slumberous fire, with a volume of verse in his hand and the comfortable consciousness that outside the club windows the rain was dripping and patte...

Theophil Eshley was an artist by profession, a cattle painter by force of environment. It is not to be supposed that he lived on a ranch or a dairy farm, in an atmosphere pervaded with horn and hoof, ...

Demosthenes Platterbaff, the eminent Unrest Inducer, stood on his trial for a serious offence, and the eyes of the political world were focused on the jury. The offence, it should be stated, was serio...

Adventures, according to the proverb, are to the adventurous. Quite as often they are to the non-adventurous, to the retiring, to the constitutionally timid. John James Abbleway had been endowed by Na...

Philip Sletherby settled himself down in an almost empty railway carriage, with the pleasant consciousness of being embarked on an agreeable and profitable pilgrimage. He was bound for Brill Manor, th...

Augustus Mellowkent was a novelist with a future; that is to say, a limited but increasing number of people read his books, and there seemed good reason to suppose that if he steadily continued to tur...

“Have you written to thank the Froplinsons for what they sent us?” asked Egbert. “No,” said Janetta, with a note of tired defiance in her voice; “I’ve written eleven letters today expressing surprise ...

Jocantha Bessbury was in the mood to be serenely and graciously happy. Her world was a pleasant place, and it was wearing one of its pleasantest aspects. Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried ...

Of all the genuine Bohemians who strayed from time to time into the would-be Bohemian circle of the Restaurant Nuremberg, Owl Street, Soho, none was more interesting and more elusive than Gebhard Knop...

“The new fashion of introducing the candidate’s children into an election contest is a pretty one,” said Mrs. Panstreppon; “it takes away something from the acerbity of party warfare, and it makes an ...

Rex Dillot was nearly twenty-four, almost good-looking and quite penniless. His mother was supposed to make him some sort of an allowance out of what her creditors allowed her, and Rex occasionally st...

“Ring for some more tea,” said Margaret Sangrail to her nephew; “Sophie Chabhouse has just been here, and I always give her inferior tea in my most valuable tea service. The fact that she can neither ...

“Harvey,” said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London morning paper1 of the 19th of March, “just read this about children’s toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas ab...

“It would be jolly to spend Easter in Vienna this year,” said Strudwarden, “and look up some of my old friends there. It’s about the jolliest place I know of to be at for Easter⁠—” “I thought we had m...

Tom Yorkfield had always regarded his half-brother, Laurence, with a lazy instinct of dislike, toned down, as years went on, to a tolerant feeling of indifference. There was nothing very tangible to d...

“Don’t talk to me about town gardens,” said Elinor Rapsley; “which means, of course, that I want you to listen to me for an hour or so while I talk about nothing else. ‘What a nice-sized garden you’ve...

“These Mappin Terraces at the Zoological Gardens are a great improvement on the old style of wild-beast cage,” said Mrs. James Gurtleberry, putting down an illustrated paper; “they give one the illusi...

It was an auspicious day in the Roman Calendar, the birthday of the popular and gifted young Emperor Placidus Superbus. Everyone in Rome was bent on keeping high festival, the weather was at its best,...

“The tea will be quite cold, you’d better ring for some more,” said the Dowager Lady Beanford. Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted with imaginary ill-health for the greater ...

“The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming,” said Annabel; “those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river winding along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the ...

It was early February and the hour was somewhere about two in the morning. Most of the house-party had retired to bed. Lucien Wattleskeat had merely retired to his bedroom, where he sat over the still...

The Olympic Toy Emporium occupied a conspicuous frontage in an important West End street. It was happily named Toy Emporium, because one would never have dreamed of according it the familiar and yet p...

James Cushat-Prinkly was a young man who had always had a settled conviction that one of these days he would marry; up to the age of thirty-four he had done nothing to justify that conviction. He like...

“Starling Chatter and Oakhill have both dropped back in the betting,” said Bertie van Tahn, throwing the morning paper across the breakfast table. “That leaves Nursery Tea practically favourite,” said...

“It is the fashion nowadays,” said Clovis, “to talk about the romance of Business. There isn’t such a thing. The romance has all been the other way, with the idle apprentice, the truant, the runaway, ...

Alethia Debchance sat in a corner of an otherwise empty railway carriage, more or less at ease as regarded body, but in some trepidation as to mind. She had embarked on a social adventure of no little...

The Rev. Wilfrid Gaspilton, in one of those clerical migrations inconsequent-seeming to the lay mind, had removed from the moderately fashionable parish of St. Luke’s, Kensingate, to the immoderately ...

An actual extract from a London paper of March 1914. ↩ Written at the Front. ↩...