On Leaving One's Beat by E.V. Lucas — Read

When I am going for a long railway journey I always buy a number of papers associated with walks of life as far as possible removed from my own. Then the time passes easily. The ordinary papers one reads too quickly; the exorbitant require attention -- they open the door to new worlds. I do not mean to suggest that one could go so far as to find entertainment in the Financial Supplement to the "Times" -- that is too much; but the organs of dog-fancying, yachting, cricket, prize-fighting, the police, estate agents, licensed victuallers -- these are sufficiently unusual and concentrated to be entertaining if they are really studied. Their exclusiveness, their importance, I particularly like: the suggestion they throw out that in this world all is vanity save their own affairs (as indeed it is). Such self-centredness is very exhilarating.

But the best fun of all is to be found in the stage and variety-hall papers. Not only are they the most amusing, but also the most human, for the sock and buskin have a way of forcing the heart to the sleeve. Limelight does more than all the sun of the tropics to bring emotion to the surface without shame; and it thus comes about that the periodicals of the players are full of refreshment to the cabined and reserved. Reading one of them the other day, I found in the advertisement columns (which should never be neglected) the following rich feast of opportunity, on which I have been ruminating ever since: --