PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 159.

August 11th, 1920.

CHARIVARIA.

"We doubt," says a contemporary, "if the Government has effected much by refusing to let Dr. Mannix land on Irish shores." We agree. What is most wanted at the moment is that the Government should land on Ireland.

We feel that the time is now ripe for somebody to pop up with the suggestion that the wet summer has been caused by the shooting in Belfast.

Manchester City Council has decided to purchase the famous Free Trade Hall for the sum of ninety thousand pounds. A thorough search for the Sacred Principles of Liberalism, which are said to be concealed somewhere in the basement, will be undertaken as soon as the property changes hands.

There is no truth in the report that Mr. Lloyd George, after listening to the grand howl of the Wolf Cubs at Olympia, declared that it was a very tame affair for anyone used to listening to Mr. Devlin.

"Kangaroos and wallabies," says a Colonial journalist, "are about the only things that the Australian sportsman can chase." Members of the M.C.C. team declare that they expect to change all that.

Reports that the gold had been removed from the Bank of Ireland to this country for the sake of safety have caused consternation in Dublin. There was always a possibility, the Irish say, that the Sinn Feiners might not lay hands on the stuff, but there isn't one chance in a hundred of it getting past Sir Eric Geddes.

À propos of the growing reluctance on the part of railway servants to take tips from holiday-makers, it appears that they are merely following the example set by the higher officials. We have positive information that only a week or so since Sir Eric Geddes flatly refused to take a tip from The Daily Mail.

While approving in principle of the proposal that the finger-prints of all children should be registered, Government officials point out that the expense would certainly be out of all proportion to the advantage obtained, in view of the prevailing high prices of jam.

There is just this one consolation about the weather of late. So far the Government have not placed a tax on rain.

"Soldiers are very dissatisfied with the way in which ex-service men are now being treated," states a Sunday paper. We understand that, if this dissatisfaction should spread, Mr. Churchill may call upon the Army to resign.

After exhaustive experiments Signor Marconi has failed to obtain any wireless message from Mars. Much anxiety is being felt by those persons having friends or mining shares there.

The youngest son of Sir Eric Geddes is learning to play golf. It is hoped by this plan to keep his mind off thoughts of a political career.

A reader living in Aberdeen informs us that the last batch of Scotch refugees arrived from England last Thursday in an exhausted condition.

"Cats are very poor swimmers," states a writer in a weekly journal. This no doubt accounts for the exceptionally high infantile mortality among these domestic pets.

Last week a wedding at Ibstock, Leicestershire, had to be postponed after the ceremony had already begun, owing to the failure of the Registrar to appear. It was not until the best man, who denied having mislaid the Registrar, had been thoroughly searched that the ceremony was abandoned.

A burglar accused of stealing sixteen volumes of classical poetry was sentenced to a month's imprisonment. The defence that he was insane was evidently ignored.

The Westminster magistrate, the other day, described a prisoner as "a very clever thief." It is said that the fellow intends printing this testimonial on his letter-paper.

A man knocked down by a racing motorist in New York is reported to have had both legs and an arm fractured, several ribs broken, and other injuries. Motorists in this country incline to the theory that it was the work of an amateur.

A Swiss guide recently discovered a chamois within sixty feet of the summit of the Jungfrau. Only on receiving the most explicit assurance that the Fourth Internationale would not be held at Grindelwald would the creature consent to resume its proper place in the landscape.

According to the conductor of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra the modern fox-trot has been evolved from a primitive negro dance called "The Blues." The theory that the Blues are the logical outcome of a primitive negro dance called the fox-trot is thus exploded.

A gentleman advertises for an island for men who are fed up with taxation. We can only say that Great Britain is just the very place.

The Laird. "Now, who on earth might those people be, Donald, dressed like tourists?"

"In some ways the American woman, it must be confessed, can give we English points on good dressing."

—Evening Paper.

She might now extend her beneficence and include some points on syntax.

"The clergy had to work far more than forty-eight hours per day, but their pay was quite inadequate."

—Local Paper.

We don't see how it would be possible to give adequate remuneration for such a feat.

IN DEFENCE OF DOROTHY.

I was greatly pained to read, the other day, in one of our leading dailies a most violent and uncalled-for attack on a popular favourite. Perhaps I should say one who was popular, for, alas, favourites have their day, and no doubt this attack was but to demolish the reputation of the setting star and enhance that of a rising one. Still it was unnecessarily churlish; it criticised not only the colour of her complexion, the exuberance of her presence, but her very name was held up to ridicule, the fault surely of her god-parents.

There has been, not unnaturally, quite a sensation in her circle over this attack; Papa Gontier and Maman Cochet clasped each other's hands in sympathy and said, "What will people say next of us, a respectable and time-honoured old couple, if they flout pretty popular little Dorothy Perkins?" "Of course, if people who live in a brand-new red-brick villa choose to invite Dorothy into their garden, one can't expect her to look her best; but, after all, there's only that languishing Stella Gray who can stand such a trial as that, and perhaps the stout Frau Druschki." "She, poor thing, is quite out of favour just now—hardly mentioned in polite society. Quite under a cloud; in fact a greeting from Teplitz is the only one she gets." "Now William Allen Richardson (there's a ridiculous long name, if you like!) was saying only yesterday how grateful we should all feel to dear Dorothy, who never seems to mind the weather and cheers us up when all else fails." "I must say I don't feel quite sure of William's sincerity, he is so very changeable, you know, and does not really care to be seen in Dorothy's company."

Pretty little Mme. Laurette Messimé was quite hanging her head about it all. "I live in harmony with all my neighbours," she simpered. "Ah, yes," flaunted Lady Gay, in that unblushing manner of hers, "that's very easy to do for colourless people." At this Caroline Testout turned quite pale and stuttered, "Well, Dorothy does scream so." "Hush, hush, my children," said the deep voice of the venerable Marshal Niel. Though yellow with extreme old age the old gentleman bore himself proudly and his dress was glossy and clean. "We all have our place in the world. Let carping critics say what they please, whether it is Dorothy in her gay gown or Liberty in her revolutionary wear, our showy American cousins, our well-beloved Scotch relations, or our Persian guests—they are all welcome, all beautiful." "Hear, hear!" murmured the other roses.

MORE MARGOBIOGRAPHY.

Proposals—Carlyle—Bismarck—Disraeli—A New Browning Poem
—Napoleon on Living British Statesmen.

[Readers of the vivacious but too reticent serial now appearing in The Sunday Times may have noticed that the narrative is now and then interrupted by a row of what Lord Randolph Churchill, during one of his conversations with Mrs. Asquith and Jowett, called (to the immense delight of the Master of Balliol) "those damned dots." Mr. Punch has, at fabulous expense, acquired the right to publish certain of the omitted passages, a selection of which is appended.]

Many Admirers.

No sooner was I in my earliest teens and had made up my mind as to the best cigarettes, than proposals began to be a matter of daily occurrence, so that whenever I saw the fifth footman or the third butler stealthily approaching me I knew that he was concealing a billet doux. Sometimes they were very flattering. Here is one, written in the big boyish hand of a Prince of the Blood:—

My beautiful, there is no one like you. They want me to marry the daughter of a royal house, but if you will say "Yes" I will defy them. We will be married by the Archbishop, who marries and buries so beautifully; but I shall never need burying, because those who marry you never die.

Poor boy, I had to send him a negative by the fifteenth groom in the third phaeton, drawn by a pair of dashing chestnuts which another of my unsuccessful adorers had given me. I noticed that when they got back to Grosvenor Square the chestnuts had turned to greys.

The Sage of Chelsea.

Thomas Carlyle loved to have me trotting in and out of his house in Cheyne Row, and we had endless talks on the desirability of silence. "Yon wee Meg," he used to say, for he refused to call me "Margot," declaring it was a Frenchified name—"yon wee Meg is the cleverest girl in Scotland—and the wittiest."

I remember once that Ruskin was there too, and we had a little breeze.

Ruskin (patronisingly). What do you think of the paintings of Turner?

Margot. He bores me.

Ruskin (drawing in a long breath). Bores you?

Margot (with a slow smile). He probably bores you too, only you daren't admit it.

What would have happened I cannot imagine had not dear old Carlyle offered me a draw of his pipe, while remarking laughingly, "She's a wonder, is Meg; she'll lead the world yet."

One day he asked me what I thought of his writing.

Margot. Too jerky and overcharged.

Carlyle (wincing). I must try to improve. What is your theory of authorship?

Margot. I think one should assume that everything that happens to oneself must be interesting to others.

Carlyle (as though staggered by a new idea). Why?

Margot (simply). Because oneself is so precious, so unique.

I asked him once what he really thought of Mrs. Carlyle, but he changed the subject.

Bismarck.

It was in Berlin, when I was seventeen, that I met Bismarck. It was at the Opera, where, being a young English girl, I was in the habit of going alone. The great Chancellor, who was all unconscious that I had penetrated his identity, watched me for a long while between the Acts and then overtook me on my way home and in French asked me to supper.

Margot (also in French). But I am not hungry.

Bismarck. In Germany you should do as the Germans do and eat always; (with emphasis) I do.

Margot (scathingly). I wonder if you are aware that I am English?

Bismarck (muttering something I could not catch about England lying crushed at his feet). But you are beautiful too! Some day you will be a countrywoman of mine.

Margot. How?

Bismarck. Because we shall make war on England and conquer it, and it will then be our own and all of you will be our people and our slaves. At least we should conquer it if——

Margot. If what?

Bismarck. If it were not for a young man who will then be Prime Minister. It is of him we are afraid.

Margot. What is his name?

Bismarck. Asquith.

Could prescience further go? Bismarck then left me with another ungainly effort at French: "Au revoir, Mademoiselle." But we never met again.

Disraeli's Last Days.

I was with Disraeli (who was one of the few men who did not propose to me) not long before the end, and he gave me many confidences, although he knew all about my friendship with Gladstone. But then I have always chosen my friends impartially from all the camps. My exact memory enables me to repeat my last conversation with Dizzy word for word:—

Margot. You look tired. Shall I dance for you?

(Continued on page 104).

THE REAL MUSIC.

John Bull. "I WISH THEY'D LET ME HEAR THE LADY."

The Wife (bitterly). "Yes, it makes a nice outin' for me, don't it—settin' in the rain all day guardin' a tin o' worms?"

Dizzy. No, no.

Margot (brightly). Let us be sensible and talk frankly about your approaching death. Have you any views as to your biography?

Dizzy. Need there be one?

Margot. Of course.

Dizzy (earnestly). Would you write it? You would be so discreet.

I had to refuse, but I am sure I could have made a more amusing job of it than Mr. Buckle has done, in spite of the love-letters. What a pity they didn't entrust it to my dear Edmund Gosse!

A Browning Poem.

Here is a little poem that Browning wrote for me on hearing me say that when we were girls "we did not know the meaning of the word 'fast'":—

We all of us worship our Margot,

She's such a determined escargot.

Talks with the Dead.

The great Napoleon had died many years before I was born; and how unjust it is that the lives of really interesting people should not coincide! But with the assistance of my beloved Oliver Lodge I have had many conversations with him. Our first opened in this manner:—

Margot. Do you take any interest in current English politics?

Napoleon. Oui (Yes).

Margot. What do you think of Lloyd George?

Napoleon. An opportunist on horseback.

Margot. I love riding too. I met most of my friends in the hunting-field. You should have seen me cantering into the hall of our town mansion. Who do you think our greatest statesman?

Napoleon. Asquith beyond a doubt.

Both Plato and Julius Cæsar, whom my beloved Oliver has also introduced to me, said the same thing.

E. V. L.

FLOWERS' NAMES.

Solomon's Seal.

Oh, lordly was King Solomon

A-stepping down so proud,

With his negro slaves and dancing girls

And all his royal crowd;

His peacocks and his viziers,

His eunuchs old and grey,

His gallants and his chamberlains

And glistening array.

Oh, blithesome was King Solomon

That burning summer day

When lo! a humble shepherdess

Stood silent in his way;

Then stepped down kingly Solomon,

And proud and great stepped he,

And there he kissed the shepherdess—

Kissed one and two and three.

Then proudly turned the peasant-maid—

Pale as a ghost was she—

"For all ye are King Solomon,

What make ye here so free?"

Oh, lordly laughed King Solomon,

"Shalt be my queen," quoth he;

"These kisses pledged King Solomon

And sealéd him to thee."

Then on went splendid Solomon

And all his glittering band,

And the wondering white peasant-girl

He led her by the hand;

But in that place sprang flower-stems

All green, for kingly pride,

With the small white kisses hanging down

With which he sealed his bride.

SQUATTERS.

Ursula came into the study, carrying something that had once been a photograph, but which the ravages of time had long since reduced to a faded and almost indecipherable problem.

"Dear," she said, "you know this portrait of Clara's boy, the one in the sailor suit, from my writing-table? I was looking at it just now——"

I interrupted her (it really was one of my rushed mornings). "I've been looking at it any time these fifteen years," I observed bitterly, "watching it become every day more and more fly-blown and like nothing on earth. What entitles it to special notice at this moment?"

"Nothing—much," said Ursula; but from the tone of her voice experience taught me that sentiment was only just out of sight. "I was wondering whether to burn it——"

"Good."

"And then I thought that, as he was married the other day and is quite likely to have a boy of his own, it would be interesting to compare this early portrait."

"It would," I assented grimly. Perhaps disappointment had made me brutal. "There's almost nothing, from the Alps at midnight to Royalty down a coalmine, with which it would not be equally safe and appropriate to compare it. Only, as I gather that this involves its continued existence for a further indefinite period, my one request is that in the meantime you remove it. Shut it in the safe. Bury it. But don't leave it about."

"Aren't you being rather excited about nothing?"

"No. This is a matter of principle, and I am speaking for your own good. Fifteen years ago that photograph, unframed and in the first flush of youth, was casually deposited on your writing-table. Perhaps you only meant to put it out of your hand for a moment while you attended to something else. But you know what the result has been. It has remained there, gradually establishing a prescriptive right. No doubt it has been dusted, with the rest of the room, seven times a week...."

"Six times," said Ursula, smiling, but blushing a little too—I was glad to observe that.

"... and as often been replaced. Its charm for the observant visitor has, to put the thing mildly, long since vanished. I doubt if either of us would so much as see it had it not attained for me the fascination of an eye-sore. Yet it stays on, simply because no one has the initiative to take action. To put it concisely, it is a squatter."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"I was never more serious in my life. This speckled travesty, this photographic mummy, is but one example out of many. I do not know whether other homes resemble ours in the same tendency towards the mausoleum. But I strongly suspect it."

"What things are there besides this?" broke out Ursula, suddenly defensive. "Tell me a list of them."

"You forget, sweetheart, that as a professional literary man my time, especially in the morning, has a certain commercial value, but I will endeavour to do as you ask. You would of course justly repudiate any comparison between your own artistic setting and those Victorian houses wherein the 'drawing-room book' reposed always in the same sacred corner. Yet in the matter of derelict articles we are millionaires, we are beset by squatters."

I could see that Ursula was impressed, though she tried to conceal the fact. "Professional literary men seem to be strangely under the dominion of one word," she began coldly.

At that moment a bell tinkled.

"Eliza!" cried Ursula; "and I'm not dressed." As she fluttered from the room I had a distinct impression that she was not sorry for an excuse to break off the interview.

I re-settled myself at my desk, smiling a little cynically. How long would the lesson last? Then I happened to glance towards the mantelpiece, beside which Ursula had been standing. There, hastily propped against the clock, was that detestable photograph. It still quivered in the movement of release, as though shaking its shoulders, settling down palpably for another decade. With an uncontrollable impulse I leapt up, seized the abomination and, flinging it on the floor, ground it to powder with my heel.

In one word, the anti-squatting campaign had definitely begun.

A. E.

Navvy. "Why don't yer wear them boards the right way round?"

Sandwichman. "Wot! In me dinner-hour? Not me!"

"Some five or six million years hence, therefore, it is prophesied, the earth will fall into the grip of an ice age. There will descend on all living things the blight of eternal cod."

Scotch Paper.

Although the danger is not immediate it deserves the serious consideration of the Food Controller.

SQUISH.

(Being some notes on a bye-path in politics.)

The Board of Agriculture has been biding its time. In the fierce light of publicity which has been beating of late upon Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Winston Churchill and Sir Eric Geddes the attempt of this rustic Ministry to assert itself has passed almost unnoticed. Our gaze has been fixed upon the London railway termini, upon Warsaw and upon Belfast; we have been neglecting Campden (Glos.). Yet in that town, I read, "the Ministry of Agriculture has completed arrangements for a commercial course in the State Fruit and Vegetable College to instruct students in the manufacture of preserved fruit products."

I have considered the last part of the sentence quoted above very carefully in the light of the Rules and Regulations governing procedure in State Departments, Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act and the Constitutions of Clarendon, and have come to the conclusion that it means "making jam." I am very sure, as the Prime Minister would say, that things are about to happen in preserved fruit products; things will become very much worse and very much sterner in jam. And if in jam why then also in jelly and in marmalade. Even at this moment in the offices of the Board of Agriculture there are a number of clerks, I suppose, sitting with schedules in front of them, something like this:—

The perfect beauty of schedules framed upon this model is only to be apprehended by those who realise that when they are filled in and added up correctly the figure at the base of the vertical "Total" column on the right is identical with the figure on the right of the horizontal "Total" column at the base. It is the haunting magic of this fact that gives to Government clerks the wistful far-away look which they habitually wear.

It is not a good schedule this, of course—not a complete, not an exhaustive one. After a month or so it will be discovered with a cry of astonishment that no record has been kept of the number of candidates who are being trained in jam or jelly (combined) but not in marmalade, in jelly and marmalade (combined) but not in jam, and in jam and marmalade (combined) but not in jelly. And so a new and a greater schedule will have to be compiled. But even after that for a long time no one will notice that nothing has been said about the number of candidates who are being trained in jam and jelly and marmalade all combined and mashed up together, as they are at a picnic on the sands.

Of the many debatable issues raised by this new Government project, in so far as it affects the spheres of jelly and jam, I do not propose to speak now; I prefer to confine my attention for the moment to the fruit product which touches most nearly the home breakfast-table—namely, marmalade.

There are three schools of thought in marmalade. There are those who like the dark and very runny kind with large segments or wedges of peel. There are those who prefer a clear and jellified substance with tiny fragments of peel enshrined in it as the fly is enshrined in amber. And there are some, I suppose, who favour a kind of glutinous yellow composition, neither reactionary nor progressive, but something betwixt and between. There can be very little doubt which kind of marmalade the State Marmalade School will produce.

And then, mark you, one fine day the President of the Board of Agriculture will turn round and issue a communiqué to the Press like this:—

"Preferential treatment in the supply of sugar for the purpose of conducting the processes of manufacture of fruit products will henceforward be given to those who possess the Campden diploma for proficiency in the conduct of the above-named processes."

And where is your freedom then? Cooks and housewives will be condemned either to make State marmalade or to make no marmalade at all. Personally I am inclined to think that the President of the Board of Agriculture will go further than this. I think that encouragement will be given to those who take the State Marmalade course to follow it up with a subsidiary or finishing course of wasp treatment.

And in wasp treatment also there are three schools. There is what is called the Churchill school, which hits out right and left with an infuriated spoon. Then there is the Montagu school, which takes no provocative action, but sits still and says, "They won't sting you if you don't irritate them;" it says this especially when they are flying round somebody else's head. And lastly there is the Medium school, which, choosing the moment when the wasp is busily engaged, presses it down gently and firmly into the marmalade, so that the last spoonfuls of the dish are not so much a fruit product as a kind of entomological preserve. The last way, I think, will be the State way of dealing with wasps, and a reward will probably be offered for the stings of all wasps embalmed on Coalition lines.

The electorate has stuck to the Government through the Peace Treaty, through Mesopotamia, through Ireland and through coal. Can it stick to them, is what I ask, through marmalade?

Evoe.

MENS CONSCIA MALI.

The lightning flashed and flickered, roared the thunder,

Down came the rain, and in the usual way

Pavilionward we sped to sit and wonder

Was this the end of play.

In scattered groups my comrades talked together,

Their disappointment faded bit by bit,

So soothing can it be to tell the weather

Just what you think of it.

But I—I sat aloof as one distressed by

A painful tendency to droop and wilt;

Though none suspected it, I was oppressed by

A conscience charged with guilt.

I watched the pitch become a sodden pulp, a

Morass, a sponge, a lake, a running stream,

What time a sad repentant Mea culpa

Was all my musing's theme.

Mine was the cricket sin too hard to pardon

In one whose age should carry greater sense;

On Friday night I'd watered all the garden,

Thus tempting Providence.

"Mr. —— asserted that the Russian people would be permitted 'untrammelled to pork out their own salvation.'"

—Canadian Paper.

And why not the Irish people too?

THE MAN WHO WOULD GET TO THE SEASIDE.

Trains full.

Charabanks full.

Sea, Sand and Hotels full.

THE COUNTER-IRRITANT

Most men have a hobby. Timbrell-Timson's is to bear on his narrow shoulders the burden of Middle Europe. He calls it Mittel-Europa. Lately he has been sharing his burden with me.

"You know," he said, frowning—he always frowns, because of the burden—"I am rather uneasy about the Czecho-Slovaks."

"I'm not too comfortable about them myself," I said truthfully.

"There seems to be a certain lack of stability about their new constitution," said T.-T., "a—a—a—what shall I say?"

"A—er—um—a," I put in.

"Exactly; just so," said T.-T. He then got into his stride and gave me twenty minutes' Czecho-Slovakism when I was dying to discover whether Hobbs had scored his two-millionth run.

As T.-T. talked my mind wandered away into regions of its own—Aunt Jane's rheumatic gout, my broken niblick, the necessity for getting my hair cut. But sub-consciously I reserved a courteous minimum of attention for T.-T., and said, "H'm" and "Ha" with decent frequency. He went on and on, shedding several ounces of the burden. I decided that Aunt Jane ought to have a shot at Christian Science.

"... very much the same plight as the Poles," said T.-T., emerging from a cloud of Czecho-Slovakism and pausing to clear his meagre throat.

I felt it was up to me. "Of course," I said, "the Poles don't strike one as being—er—very—that is—"

"Precisely. They are not," said T.-T., as I knew he would. "But I am very relieved to see that M. Grabski...."

This was something new and sounded amusing. "Grabski?" I said. "What's happened to dear old—"I mean, I thought M. Paderewski was—"

"I am referring to the recent Spa Conference," said T.-T. severely.

"Of course, how silly of me," I murmured.

T.-T. gave me another twenty minutes of Poland. Then he released me, with a final word of warning against putting too much faith in M. Daschovitch. I promised I wouldn't.

T.-T. shook me cordially.by the hand and said, "It has been a pleasure to talk to such a sympathetic listener."

What led me to revolt was T.-T.'s hat-trick. Three evenings in succession he unloaded on me chunks of the burden. Probably he thought the third time made it my own property.

I asked advice from Brown, a man of commonsense.

"During the Great War," said Brown, "I went down with pneumonia. They painted my chest yellow, and, when I asked the Sister why, she said it was a counter-irritant. That's what you want to use now, my lad. Stand up to your little friend and beat him at his own game."

"But how?" I said. "I can't. What he doesn't know about the gentle Czech isn't worth a cussovitch."

"Cultivate a counter-burden," said Brown, "and make him eat it as he has made you eat his."

When I left Brown it was decided that I was henceforth to be an authority on Mittel-Afrika. The next evening I was purposely unoccupied in a corner of the smoking-room when T.-T. came in, frowning and bowed down by his burden, to which apparently I had brought no relief.

"Well, to-day's news from Mittel-Europa is hardly—" he began.

"Scarcely glanced at it," I said. "I was so busy with the news from Mittel-Afrika—Abyssinia, in fact."

T.-T. looked surprised, partly, no doubt, because he knew as well as I did that Abyssinia is nowhere near the middle of Africa. Then he gained balance and reopened with the remark that "The ineradicable weakness of the Czecho-Slovak is—"

"Just what I feel about the Ethiopians," I said.

"Of course there is in the Czecho a fundamental—" began T.-T. once more.

"Not half so fundamental as in the Abyssinians," I said promptly.

T.-T. was puzzled but obstinate. The burden, I think, was rather bad that evening. He tried me with Grabski and got as far as saying that he had little respect for that gentleman's antecedents.

I broke in by comparing Grabski's antecedents with the antecedents of B'lumbu, the Abyssinian Deputy Under-secretary of the Admiralty, much to the detriment of the latter. Then I launched out into a long and startling exposé of what I called the Swarthy Peril. I told T.-T. that the Ethiopians ate their young, and warned him that, unless he was careful, they would soon be over here devouring his own spectacled progeny. I told him about the Ethiopic secret plans for the invasion of Mexico as a stepping-stone to the subjugation of Mittel-Amerika. I hinted that Abyssinian spies were everywhere—that even one of the club waiters was not above suspicion.

For thirty-five minutes I held T.-T. in his chair (may the Abyssinian gods forgive me!). After the first three minutes he forgot his burden and never a word spake he.

Then I released him with a final warning against putting any faith at all in Gran'slâm, the Abyssinian Assistant Foreign Secretary, and as we parted I said gratefully, "It has been a pleasure to talk to such a sympathetic listener."

I don't think T.-T. really believes even now in the Swarthy Peril, but the counter-irritant has done its work.

ANOTHER GARDEN OF ALLAH.

[The Metropolitan Water Board announces an advance in the Water Rate.]

I cannot fill the bounteous cup

Munificently as of yore

Because the water's going up

(It didn't at Lodore);

No longer now can I regale

The canine stranger with a pail

Drawn from my cistern's store.

Let Samuel the sunflower die,

Let Gerald the geranium fade,

And all the other plants that I

Have hitherto displayed;