PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 146.

May 6, 1914.

CHARIVARIA.

According to an official of the Imperial Japanese household, the poems composed by the late Dowager-Empress of Japan numbered 30,000. But these were never published, and the Empress died universally respected.

A foolish hoax is said to have been perpetrated on the authorities at Dublin Castle. An anonymous communication informed them that a Dreadnought had been purchased by the Ulster loyalists, and would shortly make her appearance off the coast of Ireland disguised as an outrigger. Urgent instructions were in consequence issued to the coastguards not to be caught napping.

"I honestly hope," said General Villa, "that the Americans will bottle up Vera Cruz so tight that one can't even get water into it." But this surely would place America's teetotal navy in a very awkward predicament.

His Majesty King Ferdinand of Bulgaria has, a Paris newspaper informs us, purchased four elephants as pets. We trust that this is the beginning of the end of the toy-dog craze. We have always considered elephants more interesting, and ladies no doubt will not be slow to realise that there is more effect to be got out of them.

The dogs which are to accompany his expedition are, Sir Ernest Shackleton states, coming to London and will spend some little time here. It is to be hoped that they will be given a good time and shown the sights, and that no one will be so thoughtless as to mention emergency rations in their presence.

Says Mr. Filson Young in The Pall Mall Gazette:—"I began yesterday by swimming in a sunlit sea, continued it by motoring through a hundred miles of lilac and gorse, and ended it listening to the most perfect concert programme at Queen's Hall that I have ever heard.... Was it not a happy day?" The answer, Filson, is in the affirmative.

Forty years ago, £1,000 a year was spent on wines and spirits at the Medway (Chatham) Workhouse and Infirmary, while to-day the annual expenditure is only £5. In these hard times even paupers have to economise.

St. Mark's Church, Tunbridge Wells, which has been troubled with a plague of flies, has had to be closed for a week for the purpose of fumigation. Many members of the congregation had complained of being kept awake by these vivacious insects.

Apparently the modistes have resolved that this shall be a butcher's year, for we are promised leg-of-mutton sleeves, ham-frill skirts, and pork-pie hats.

Although M. Jean Worth, the famous creator of fashions, has declared that the mania of modern women for changing styles of dress amounts to a disease, it is not, we understand, the present intention of any of the leading dressmaking firms to offer a prize for a cure for this ailment.

M. Worth also stated that "Quality, not quantity," is the right motto for women in matters of dress. For all that, we trust that the irreducible minimum has now been reached.

According to the calculations of a M. Verronet, the earth has only another two million years to live. We hope that the effect of this statement may not be to encourage jerry-building.

"Lend us a 'and wiv this, will yer, Mister? Muvver wants 'im 'ome and 'e's that 'eadstrong!"

THE CRITIC AT THE R.A.

"Talking of treacle pudding," said Felicity, helping that delicacy with a grace and skill that would have demanded the entire concentration of one less gifted—"talking of treacle pudding, I suppose you've done the Academy?"

"Not yet," I confessed.

She looked at me reproachfully.

"Dear, dear," she sighed, "when will the British Public awaken to the claims of Art? We haven't either."

"I generally wait a bit and find out which are the pictures I am expected to admire."

"And a very sensible plan too," she rejoined; "that is, for you and me and the rest of the common herd. Of course Papa's different. He's a critic."

Her father coughed deprecatingly.

"When he sees anything really artistic," she went on, "it fills him with delight."

"I wish you wouldn't use that horrible word, Felicity," he groaned.

"What horrible word?"

"Artistic."

"Sorry, Papa; I forgot. On the other hand," she continued unabashed, "if you show him anything that isn't it causes him terrible suffering. He will cover his eyes with one hand and shoo it away with the other."

"You mustn't mind my little daughter's nonsense," he said. "Someone told her the other day she had a sense of humour. It was a great mistake."

"That's one up to you, Papa," she returned cheerfully; "but before the House adjourns I should like to move that we all go to the Academy this afternoon."

"I should love it," I replied, "but I'm afraid I must get back to work."

"Do you work?" she exclaimed with rapture. "How frightfully exciting."

At a Flapper dance in the evening I met Felicity again and she gave me the second "Hesitation Waltz." Afterwards she led me to some nice basket chairs in the conservatory.

"Well, did the Academy come off?" I asked.

"Did it come off?" said Felicity. "I should say so. It was the nicest afternoon I've had for weeks. You ought to have been there."

"I suppose your father was in hot form criticising the pictures?"

"Hush," she whispered, holding her finger to her lips. "Papa as an Art critic is temporarily under a cloud. I'll tell you. It came about in this way: Papa is a great admirer of Sargent, and to-day he was in a particularly Sargentesque mood. 'The great drawback to the Academy,' he said, as we were setting forth, 'is that the Sargents are spoiled by the other pictures. The huge mass of these all over the place entirely destroys one's perceptions of colour value. What I should like to do would be to see only the Sargents, turning a blind eye meanwhile to the other paintings.'"

"'You ought to wear blinkers,' I suggested.

"He was all for it at once.

"'That's a capital idea, Felicity.'

"'Then you'll go by yourself, Papa,' I said. 'I'll do some shopping and call for you at the police station on the way home.'

"Well, he abandoned the blinker idea eventually, but stuck to his scheme for concentrating on Sargent, and suddenly I saw how the afternoon might be made both amusing and instructive. So I said, 'There's one thing that's rather pleasing, Papa. You won't have to buy a catalogue, because I've got one. Some people I had tea with yesterday gave me theirs, and I'll bring it if you like.'"

She looked at me mischievously under her long dark lashes.

"You catch the idea?" she asked.

"No," I said, "not yet."

"Well, as soon as we arrived Papa took the catalogue and looked up all the Sargents—in the index part, you know, and wrote the numbers on his cuff and then we began to hunt them down.

"The first one was a 'still life.' Papa viewed it in some perplexity. 'Ah,' he said at length, 'just as I thought. I have been anticipating this for some time.' He adjusted his spectacles. 'The tendency of modern Art—that is to say the best Art—is towards a return to more classic forms. Sargent, as might be expected, leads the way; but he infuses the subject with his own special genius. I regard this as a very line example—very fine, indeed. The vitality of the half salmon is positively amazing.'

"I led him gently away, and presently we stood before the portrait of a City gentleman—the kind that is very fond of turtle soup. Papa raved over it.

"'Here, again,' he pointed out, 'see the loving care bestowed on each link in the watch-chain. What a reproof to the slovenly slap-dash methods of the Impressionists.'

"I gazed rapturously into his face and urged him onward. Things went from bad to worse, but it was really 'The Lowing Herd' that put the lid on it. A more lamentable company of cows you could hardly imagine. Even Papa was baffled for the moment; but after checking the number on the picture with the number on his cuff he pulled himself together.

"'Wonderful grouping,' he said; 'eminently Sargentesque;' and his voice seemed to challenge all within earshot to name another artist who could have produced the work.

"'Well, now,' he concluded, 'I think that is the last of them, and the best thing we can do is to go home. It would be a pity to spoil the afternoon by looking at any of the lesser lights.'

"I hesitated. 'Don't you think,' I suggested, 'it would be nice just to look at the Sargents before we go?'

"For some moments Papa was speechless.

"'The Sargents!' he exclaimed at length. 'Well, of all the——Here I devote a solid half-hour to teaching you something about Art and your mind is woolgathering the whole time. What on earth were you thinking about?'

"'I was thinking about the years that are gone,' I said.

"'The years that are gone?'

"'Yes, and I'm afraid it's entirely my fault, because I brought it.'

"Papa gasped.

"'What on earth is the child talking about?'

"'The catalogue,' I said; 'it's some other year's.'"

At this moment the fallen Art critic entered the conservatory.

"Is that you, Felicity?" he exclaimed. "You're cutting a dance with your own father. I never heard of such a thing."

She sprang up.

"Oh, Papa!" she cried, "I am sorry."

She slipped her arm through his, and as they moved away together I heard her say, with what seemed unnecessary distinctness, "We were talking Art, you know, and that's so dreadfully absorbing."

Commercial Candour.

"It is a matter of surprise in more than one well-appointed household that the best efforts of a skillful chef can produce nothing more acceptable than

——'s Tomato Soup.."—Advt.

From a review of a book by Mr. Harold Russell:—

"The horrible chigoes, or 'jiggers,' are of the flea family, and with them we must leave Mr. Russell."—Yorkshire Post.

Is this kind?

"The three greatest pets in the Darwin district are said to be the white ant—which sometimes grows to the size of a bee—the marsh fly, and the great Darwin mosquito."

Adelaide Register.

Our white ant "Fifi" has just bitten through her collar and run away. If found wandering, please return.

SITTING TIGHT.

American Eagle. "OF COURSE I'M IN A VERY STRONG POSITION AND QUITE COMFORTABLE. ALL THE SAME, I HOPE THEY'LL HURRY UP WITH THE MEDIATION."

Forced into retirement (happily only temporary) by his introduction of the taxi-cab, our devoted follower of yesterday

again takes the field.

NOVELIST AND MILLIONAIRE.

Fortified by the inspiring example of Mr. Upton Sinclair, who recently picketed the offices of the Standard Oil Company in New York with a view to bringing pressure to bear on Mr. John Rockefeller, Junr., Mr. Alf. Abel, the famous Manx novelist, has adopted similar measures to bring Mr. Andrew Carnegie to reason. The trouble is of long standing and has grown out of the movement inaugurated by Mr. Abel to induce municipalities and local authorities to refuse the gifts of Free Libraries. Such benefactions, as Mr. Abel has most conclusively shown, while nominally intended to educate the masses, in reality have the result of restricting the sale and circulation of those works of fiction which conduce most effectively to the culture, the intellectual emancipation and the moral uplift of the nation. Worse still, they reduce the legitimate emoluments which the authors of these noble works derive from their beneficent labours. Owing to this pernicious system the number of copies sold of Mr. Abel's last work only readied 250,000 copies, instead of 400,000, as he and his publisher, Mr. Goethemann, confidently expected. Mr. Abel has memorialised the Prime Minister, but without effect, and at last determined to take decisive action himself. Accordingly, having chartered a swift steamer manned by Manx fishermen, and carrying 500 volunteers wearing the national uniform, Mr. Abel set out from Douglas (I. of M.) on Wednesday last and, landing in the neighbourhood of Dornoch on Friday night, advanced early next morning on Skibo Castle, the seat of Mr. Carnegie.

The famous millionaire, who is an early riser, was playing the organ in the central hall of the Castle when he was apprised of the approach of the raiders by one of his retinue, and at once determined to organise a stubborn resistance. The portcullis was let down, the moat filled to its utmost capacity, while Winchester rifles were served out to the four butlers, sixteen footmen, seven chauffeurs and twenty-four gardeners who compose the staff. The organist was instructed to play martial music to hearten the defenders, while Mr. Carnegie took up his position in the bomb-proof gazebo which is so prominent a feature in the Sutherland landscape. Meantime Mr. Abel, advancing at the head of his volunteers, had taken cover behind an Araucaria and addressed an ultimatum to Mr. Carnegie through a megaphone. It was to the effect that unless he promised to forbid the supply of Mr. Abel's novels to his Free Libraries, Mr. Abel would—

(1) Let loose 1,000 Manx cats in Mr. Carnegie's preserves;

(2) Permanently establish himself in the neighbourhood of Skibo and follow Mr. Carnegie about wherever he went, in Elizabethan costume;

(3) Make Mr. Carnegie the villain of his next novel;

(4) Give free recitations from his works in Dornoch and the neighbourhood.

The situation was extremely critical when Mr. Jenery Hames, the illustrious American novelist, who was staying with Mr. Carnegie, gallantly offered his services as a mediator, and, sallying forth under a flag of truce, entered into negotiations with Mr. Abel. After a protracted interview a via media was reached by which, while Mr. Carnegie undertook to exclude Mr. Abel's works from his Free Libraries, Mr. Abel agreed to withdraw his threat of coming to reside in Sutherlandshire on the understanding that Mr. Jenery Hames contributed a six-column appreciation of Mr. Abel's works to The Times, provided that the demands of golf on the best pages of that journal permitted it. Subsequently Mr. Carnegie entertained the Manx Volunteers at a sumptuous déjeuner, at which Mr. Hames proposed the health of Mr. Abel and Mr. Abel fell on the neck of Mr. Hames. No other casualties occurred to mar the peaceful termination of what might have proved an international catastrophe.

"Its author could no longer look forward with 3/8 his old hope or confidence to a continued successful resistance to Home Rule."

Manchester Guardian.

"Half his old hope" a less meticulous speaker would have said.

"The defendants were ordered to pay the costs, but the Chairman (Mr. T. J. Price) remarked that if such breeches were repeated the magistrates would have to adopt sterner measures."—South Wales Daily News.

We hope this will be a warning to our nuts.

BLANCHE'S LETTERS.

Week-End-on-Sea.

Park Lane.

Dearest Daphne,—I've been doing Easter with the Clackmannans and helping them with an idea they're carrying out. There's a little coast town on their Southshire property (Shrimpington it's been called up to now), and they're turning it into a seaside place that people can go to! Isn't that dilly? Of course, our coasts quite bristle with seaside towns, but they're places people can't go to because everybody goes there. And so the Clackmannans are going to supply a long-felt want, as old-fashioned people say, and give us a ville de bains of our very very own. Its name is to be changed from Shrimpington to Week-End-on-Sea. It has no railway station, which, of course, is a great merit; it's not to have any big blatant hotels or pensions—nothing but charming bungalow-cottages; there'll be no pier, no band, none of those banal winter-gardens and impossible pleasure palaces that ces autres delight in, and, of course, none of those immensely fearful concert parties and pierrots. But we shall have a troupe of mermen and mermaids who will do classic gambols by the marge of the sea and play on pipes or shells or whatever it is that sea-creatures play on. There'll be bathing parties, when the last syllable of the last word in bathing-kit will be seen; paddling parties, in carefully thought out toilettes pour marcher dans l'eau, and shell-gathering parties. Stella Clackmannan, who has such an active brain that everyone's quite anxious about her, is going to have tons of really pretty shells laid along a part of the beach (above high water), and people will go shell-gathering en habit coquilleux.

The only feature Week-End-on-Sea will have in common with other seaside places is a parade. At first Stella wouldn't hear of having one; but Norty told her there's "a deep-seated primal instinct in human nature for sitting on benches and watching one's fellow-creatures walk up and down, and it would not be wise to thwart this instinct." He's an enormously clever boy, and, when it was put to her like that, Stella gave in. So there's to be a parade on the sea front, and Ray Rymington, whose sense of the beautiful is absolutely, will see after it. There'll be none of those ghastly glass shelters, but just darling Sheraton benches at intervals, and the paraders will be carefully censored. Nobody who hasn't something of a profile will be allowed to walk up and down—and no woman who takes more than 4's in slices or who's wearing a last year's sleeve. So you see, dearest, it will be quite a cachet, both of person and style, to be seen walking on the parade at our watering-place. The Bullyon-Boundermere woman met Stella in town the other day and said, "My dear duchess, how can we thank you for at last giving us a really classy seaside place?" "What a wonderful word, Mrs. Boundermere!" answered Stella. "'Classy'! Do tell me what it means!"

Oh, my best one! Such a simply sumptuous storyette for you! Even in your remote fastnesses you must have heard of young Ivan Rowdidowsky, the very very latest thing in Russian composer-pianists. Playing the piano with his elbows, dressed in scarlet velvet, and fuller of "inner meanings" than anyone (even from Russia) ever was before, he captured London at the beginning of the Little Season, and his vogue has been colossal. He gave twelve elbow-recitals of his own compositions at Emperor's Hall. Those fearsome interviewers fairly mobbed him, and he told them, in the prettiest broken English, that "piano playing with the hands suited well enough the pale-blooded law-abiding people of yesterday, but that the full-pulsing stormy emotions of to-day could only be adequately expressed by the elbows!" Quite myriads of people made him write, "Your affectionate friend, Ivan Rowdidowsky," in their autograph-books, till at last he had cramp in the hand and Sir William Kiddem had to be called in. There were reassuring bulletins telling the public that they needn't be alarmed about their favourite, as cramp in the band is rarely fatal and does not affect the elbows, and that, if M. Rowdidowsky stopped writing in autograph-books for a day or two, he'd be quite his wonderful self again.

Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, has been folle de lui from the first, and at Easter she'd a big party for him down at "Popsy's Pleasaunce," her place in Sussex, and then and there announced that she was engaged to him, and that after her marriage she would drop the Ramsgate title and be known by "her Ivan's beautiful Slavonic name!" People were very nice to her about it and didn't laugh more than they could help, and all went cheerily, Rowdidowsky in his scarlet velvet playing to them with his elbows every evening; and then one fatal morning (as novelists say) Popsy picked up a letter that her Ivan had dropped from his pocket. It was addressed outside to "M. Rowdidowsky," and this is an extract from what she read inside: "I was at your show at Emperor's Hall the other day and thought I should have split my skin at the way the silly jossers all round me were carrying on, and at the thought that it was my pal, good old Bert Smith of Camberwell, perched up on the platform in red velvet togs pounding away on the old piano with his elbows like a good 'un. I put my hands over my face to prevent myself from bursting out, and the woman next to me shoved a silver bottle under my nose and gurgled into my ear, 'You've an artist-soul! I felt just as you do when I first heard this divine Rowdidowsky!' The silly geeser! Go it, old son! More power to your elbows! And don't forget, when you've made your pile, that your old pal, Joe, was part-author of the idea and helped you to work it out!"

Popsy, poor old dear, is having the Gurra-Gurra treatment for nervous collapse. Lord and Lady Ramsgate are enormously relieved at the turn things have taken; and their boy Pegwell said to me yesterday, "I'm jolly glad it's all off! Fancy how decomposed it would have been to have Rumtidumsky, or whatever his name was, for a step-grandfather!"

Ever thine, Blanche.

Superb Chauffeur. "There has been an accident, m'lady."

OUR OVERBRED RACERS.

The Nightmare of an Anxious Owner.

"Flash-in-the-Pan" suddenly realises the enormous issues depending on him and faints in his trainer's arms.

PETER, A PEKINESE PUPPY.

Our Peter, who's famed as an eater of things,

Is a miniature dragon without any wings.

He can gallop or trot, he can amble or jog,

But he flies like a flash when he's after his prog:

And the slaves who adore him, whatever his mood,

Say that nothing is fleeter

Than Peter the eater,

Than Peter pursuing his food.

He considers the garden his absolute own:

It's the place where a digger can bury a bone.

Then he tests his pin-teeth on a pansy or rose,

Spreading ruin and petals wherever he goes;

And his mistress declares, when he's nibbled for hours,

That nothing is sweeter

Than Peter the eater,

The resolute eater of flowers.

Having finished his dinner he wheedles the cook,

Picks a coal from the scuttle or tackles a book,

Or devotes all his strength to a slipper or mat,

To the gnawing of this and the tearing of that:

Faute de mieux takes a dress; and his mistress asserts

That there's nothing to beat her

Like Peter the eater,

Attached by his teeth to her skirts.

But at last he has supped, and the moment is come

When, his stretchable tum being tight as a drum,

He is meek and submissive, who once was so proud,

And he creeps to his basket and slumbers aloud.

And his mistress proclaims, as she tucks up his shawl,

That nothing is neater

Than Peter the eater,

Than Peter curled up in a ball,

Asleep and digesting it all.

R. C. L.

A BARGAIN IN FASHIONS.

Whatever may chance in the coming season

Regarding the fashions in women's wear,

I should like to remark that I see no reason

For treating the thing like a German scare;

Rather let us, the oppressed, restricted,

Assert ourselves as the women do;

It's their turn, dash it! to feel afflicted

By seeing us flaunting a craze or two.

It's more than time their monopoly ceases;

Excepting the vote, I dare assert

We deny them none of their wild caprices,

Though I own we jibbed at the harem skirt;

We were wrong; we ought to have let them wear it;

Free will in dress is a sacred right;

But we should be equally keen to declare it

With them who make it their chief delight.

We must come to terms with our female betters,

Seeing that summer will soon be nigh;

If they would be rid of the skirt that fetters,

They might free us from the collar and tie;

It's neck or nothing! I ask you whether

We can't be conspicuous now and then;

I think there challenges go together:—

Trousers for women!—Low necks for men!

THE COMPETITION SPIRIT.

About six weeks ago a Canadian gentleman named Smith arrived in the Old Country (England). He knew a man who knew a man who knew a man ... and so on for a bit ... who know a man who knew a man who knew me. Letters passed; negotiations ensued; and about a week after he had first set foot in the Mother City (London) Smith and I met at my Club for lunch.

I may confess now that I was nervous. I think I expected a man in a brown shirt and leggings, who would ask me to put it "right there," and tell me I was "some Englishman." However, he turned out to be exactly like anybody else in London. Whether he found me exactly like anybody else in Canada, I don't know. Anyway, we had a very pleasant lunch, and arranged to play golf together on the next day.

Whatever else is true of Canada there can be no doubt that it turns out delightful golfers. Smith proved to be just the best golfer I had ever met, being, in fact, when at the top of his form, almost exactly as good as I was. Hole after hole we halved in a mechanical eight. If by means of a raking drive and four perfect brassies at the sixth he managed to get one up for a moment, then at the short seventh a screaming iron and three consummate approaches would make me square again. Occasionally he would, by superhuman play, do a hole in bogey; but only to crack at the next, and leave me, at the edge of the green, to play "one off eleven." It was, in fact, a ding-dong struggle all the way; and for his one-hole victory in the morning I had my revenge with a one-hole victory in the afternoon.

By the end of a month we must have played a dozen rounds of this nature. I always had a feeling that I was really a better golfer than he, and this made me friendly towards his game. I would concede him short putts which I should have had no difficulty in missing myself; if he lost his ball I would beg him to drop another and go on with the hole; if he got into a bad place in a bunker I would assure him it was ground under repair. He was just as friendly in refusing to take these advantages, just as pleasant in offering similar indulgences to me. I thought at first it was part of his sporting way, but it turned out that (absurdly enough) he also was convinced that he was really the better golfer of the two, and could afford these amenities.

One day he announced that he was going back to Canada.

"We must have a last game," he said, "and this one must be decisive."

"For the championship of the Empire," I agreed. "Let's buy a little cup and play for it. I've never won anything at golf yet, and I should love to see a little cup on the dinner-table every night."

"You can't come to dinner in Canada every night," he pointed out. "It would be so expensive for you."

Well, the cup was bought, engraved "The Empire Challenge Cup," and played for last Monday.

"This," said Smith, "is a serious game, and we must play all out. No giving away anything, no waiving the rules. The Empire is at stake. The effeteness of the Mother Country is about to be put to the proof. Proceed."

It wasn't the most pleasant of our games. The spirit of the Cup hung over it and depressed us. At the third hole I had an eighteen-inch putt for a half. "That's all right," said Smith forgetfully, and then added, "perhaps you'd better put it in, though." Of course I missed. On the fifth green he bent down to brush away a leaf. "That's illegal," I said sharply, "you must pick it up; you mayn't brush it away," and after a fierce argument on the point he putted hastily—and badly. At the eighteenth tee we were all square and hardly on speaking terms. The fate of the Mother Country depended upon the result of this hole.

I drove a long one, the longest of the day, slightly hooked.

"Good shot," said Smith with an effort. He pressed and foozled badly. I tried not to look pleased.

We found his ball in a thick clump of heather. With a grim look on his face, he took out his niblick....

I stayed by him and helped him count up to eight.

"Where's your ball?" he growled.

"A long way on," I said reproachfully. "I wish you'd hurry up. The poor thing will be getting cold."

He got to work again. We had another count together up to fifteen. Sometimes there would be a gleam of white at the top of the heather for a moment and then it would fade away.

"How many?" I asked some minutes later.

"About thirty. But I don't care, I'm going to get the little beast into the hole if it takes me all night." He went on hacking.

I had lost interest in the performance, for the Cup was mine, but I did admire his Colonial grit.

"Got it," he cried suddenly, and the ball sailed out on to the pretty. Another shot put him level with me.

"Thirty-two?" I asked.

"About," he said coldly.

I began to look for my ball. It had got tired of waiting and had hidden itself. Smith joined gloomily in the search.

"This is absurd," I said after three or four minutes.

"By Jove!" said Smith, suddenly brightening up. "If your ball's lost I win after all."

"Nonsense; you've given the hole up," I protested. "You don't know how many you've played. According to the rules if I ask you how many, and you give wrong information——"

"It's thirty-five," he said promptly.

"I don't believe you counted."

"Call it forty-five then. There's nothing to prevent my calling it more than it really is. If it was really only forty, then I'm counting five occasions when the ball rolled over as I was addressing it. That's very generous of me. Actually I'm doubtful if the ball did roll over five times, but I say it did in order to be on the safe side." He looked at his watch. "And if you don't find your ball in thirty seconds you lose the hole."

It was ingenious, but the Mother Country can be ingenious too.

"How many have you played exactly?" I asked. "Be careful."

"Forty-five," he said. "Exactly."

"Right." I took my niblick and swung at the heather. "Bother," I said. "Missed it. Two."

"Hallo! Have you found it?"

"I have. It's somewhere in this field. There's no rule which insists that you shall hit the ball, or even that you shall hit near the ball, or even that you shall see the ball when you hit at it. Lots of old gentlemen shut their eyes and miss the sphere. I've missed. In five minutes I shall miss again."

"But what's the point?"

"The point, dear friend," I smiled, "is that after each stroke one is allowed five minutes in which to find the ball. I have forty-three strokes in hand; that gives me three hours and thirty-five minutes in which to look for it. At regular intervals of five minutes I shall swing my club and probably miss. It's four-thirty now; at eight o'clock, unless I find my ball before, I shall be playing the like. And if you are a sportsman," I added, "you will bring me out some tea in half-an-hour."

At six-thirty I was still looking—and swinging. Smith then came to terms and agreed to share the cup with me for the first year. He goes back to Canada to-morrow, and will spread the good news there that the Old Country can still hold its own in resource, determination and staying power. But next year we are going to play friendly golf again.

A. A. M.

"I say, Nora, that woman's wearing rather a smart coat."

THE EAVESDROPPER.

It may not be generally known that, on very still nights, in the small hours, when there are no taxis rushing past and no late revellers returning home, it is possible, by leaning against a pillar-box and placing one's ear close to the opening, to hear the letters converse. Provided, of course, that one has a pure soul, as I have. Otherwise there is no sound.

Chancing to be out late the other night in a very quiet neighbourhood, I suddenly noticed a pillar-box and was reminded that I had a letter to post. I dropped it in and held my breath as I listened.

"Here's another!" said a voice. "Who are you, pray?"

"I'm an acceptance with thanks," said my letter.

"What do you accept?" another voice asked.

"An invitation to dinner," said my letter, with a touch of swank.

"Pooh!" said the other. "Only that."

"It's at a house in Kensington," said my letter rather haughtily.

"Well, I'm an acceptance of an invitation to a dance at a duchess's," was the reply, and my poor letter said no more.

Then all the others began to chatter,

"I contain news of a death," said one.

"I bring news of a legacy," said another.

"I demand the payment of a debt," said a sharp metallic voice.

"I decline an offer of marriage," said a fourth, rather wistfully.

"I've got a cheque inside," said a fifth with a swagger.

"I convey the sack," said a sixth in triumph.

"What do you think I am?" another inquired. "You shall have six guesses."

"Give us a clue," said a voice.

"Very well. I'm a foolscap envelope."

Then the guessing began.

One said a writ.

Another said an income-tax demand.

But no one could guess it.

"I'm a poem for a paper," said the foolscap letter at last.

"Are you good?" asked a voice.

"Not good enough, I'm afraid," said the poem. "In fact I've been out and back again seven times already."

"Guess what I am," said a sentimental murmur.

"Any one could guess that," was the gruff reply. "You're a love-letter."

"Quite right," said the sentimental murmur. "But how clever of you!"

"Well," said another, "you're not the only love-letter here. I'm a love-letter too."

"How do you begin?" asked the first.

"I begin, 'My Darling,'" said the second love-letter.

"That's nothing," said the first; "I begin, 'My Ownest Own.'"

"I don't think much of either of those beginnings," said a new voice. "I begin, 'Most Beautiful.'"

"You're from a man, I suppose?" said the second love-letter.

"Yes, I am," said the new one. "Aren't you?"

"No, I'm from a woman," said the second. "I'll admit your beginning's rather good. But how do you end?"

"I end with 'A million kisses,'" said the new one.

"Ah, I've got you there!" said the second. "I end with 'For ever and ever yours.'"

"That's not bad," said the second, "but my ending is pretty good in its way. I end like this, 'To-morrow will be Heaven once more, for then we meet again.'"

"Oh, do stop all this love talk!" said the gruff letter, when I was conscious of a hand on my arm and a lantern in my face.

"Here," said the authoritative tones of the law, "I think you've been leaning against this pillar-box long enough. If you can't walk I'll help you home."

Thus does metallic prose invade the delicate realms of supernature.

"Captain Amilcar Magalhaes, chief of the Brazilian Mission, accompanying Mr. Roosevelt, says the ex-President has discovered a tribe of savages named Panhates. The total bag collected on the expedition amounts to about 2,000 specimens.—Reuter."

Sussex Daily News.