nt of howls, hoots and kisses."

_Provincial Paper_.

A notoriously effective way of stopping the mouth.

* * * * *

From the Lady's column in _The Cur_:--

"Now about this word 'damn.' Of course you all think it is a good
old Saxon word! Well, prepare for a surprise. It is derived from
the Latin damnere."

Well, we are--surprised.

* * * * *

Motto for the next Turkish Revolution: _Enver Renverse_.

[Illustration: _Householder._ "But, hang it all, I can't see why that
bomb next door should make you want to _raise_ my rent!"

_Landlord._ "Don't you perceive, my dear Sir, that your house is now
semi-detached?"]

* * * * *

TONNAGE.

"Oh, dear," said Francesca, "everything keeps going up." She was engaged
upon the weekly books and spoke in a tone of heartfelt despair.

"Well," I said, "you've known all along how it would be. Everybody's
told you so."

"Everybody? Who's everybody in this case?"

"I told you so for one, and Mr. Asquith mentioned it several times, and
so did Mr. McKenna."

"I have never," she said proudly, "discussed my weekly books with
Messrs. Asquith and McKenna. I should scorn the action."

"That's all very well," I said. "Keep them away as far as you can, but
they'll still get hold of you. The Chancellor of the Exchequer knows
your weekly books by heart."

"I wish," she said, "he'd add them up for me. He's a good adder-up, I
suppose, or he wouldn't be what he is."

"He's fair to middling, I fancy--something like me."

"_You!_" she said, in a tone of ineffable contempt. "You're no good at
addition."

"Francesca," I said, "you wrong me. I'm a great deal of good. Of course
I don't pretend to be able to run three fingers up three columns of
figures a yard long and to write down the result as L7,956 17_s._ 8_d_.,
or whatever it may be, without a moment's pause. I can't do that, but
for the ordinary rough-and-tumble work of domestic addition I'm hard to
beat. Only if I'm to do these books of yours there must be perfect
silence in the room. I mustn't be talked to while I'm wrestling with the
nineteens and the seventeens in the shilling column."

"In fact," said Francesca, "you ought to be a deaf adder."

"Francesca," I said, "how could you? Give me the butcher's book and let
there be no more _jeux de mots_ between us."