LLOYD illustrated the Essence of Parliament
in these pages. Mr. Punch offers him his most sincere congratulations
upon the high distinction he has won, and is delighted to know that he
is completely recovered from the severe head-wound which he received
last year.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mother_ (_to little girl who had been sent to the
hen-house for eggs_). "WELL, DEAR, WERE THERE NO EGGS?"

_Little Girl_. "NO, MUMMIE, ONLY THE ONE THE HENS USE FOR A PATTERN."]

* * * * *

THE BEAUTIFUL WORDS.

I have to tell an unvarnished tale of real and recent life in London.
When the absence of impulsive benevolence and public virtue is so
often insisted upon it is my duty to put the following facts on
record.

It was, as it now always is, a wet day. The humidity not only
descended from a pitiless sky, but ascended from the cruel pavements
which cover the stony heart of that inexorable stepmother, London.
Need I say that under these conditions no cabs were obtainable? In
other words it was one of those days, so common of late, when other
people engage the cabs first. They were plentiful enough, full. One
could have been run over and killed by them twenty times between
Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, but all teemed with selfish
life. Men of ferocious concentration and women detestable in their
purposefulness were to be seen through the passing windows. It was a
day on which no one ever got out of a cab at all, except to tell it
to wait. No flag was ever up. Since the blessing of peace began to be
ours these days have been the rule.

Not only were the cabs all taken and reserved till to-morrow, but the
'buses were overcrowded too. A line of swaying men, steaming from the
deluge, intervened in every 'bus between two rows of seated women,
also steaming. It was a day on which the conductors and conductresses
were always ringing the bell three times.

There was also (for we are very thorough in England) a strike on the
Tube and the Underground.

Having to get to Harley Street, I walked up Regent Street, doing
my best to shelter beneath an umbrella, and (being a believer in
miracles) turning my head back at every other step in the hope that a
cab with its flag up might suddenly materialise; but hoping against
hope. It was miserable, it was depressing, and it was really rather
shameful: by the year 1919 A.D. (I thought) more should have been
achieved