?--see "bark"
substituted for "biq," the original word being "ubiquitous." This is
the sort of "_vuerdtwistren_" at which they roar in Sweden.

It's all _tres bien_ (very well) but how the deuce can you be funny in
the Baltic? Why call it Baltic? For days and nights at sea, sometimes
up, more often down, and a sense of inability coming over me in the
middle of the boundless deep. Alas, poor YORICK!

Then breakfast. Then lunch. Then dinner. No drinking permitted between
meals: to which regulation. _I am gradually becoming habituated._ It
is difficult to acquire new habits. Precious difficult in mid-ocean,
where there isn't a tailor. [Humorous again, eh?] I now understand
what is the meaning of "a Depression is crossing the Atlantic."
There's an awful Depression hanging about the Baltic.

[Illustration]

I send you a sketch of Elsinore, as I thought it would be, and
Elsinore as it is. Elsinore is like the Pumping Works at Barking
Creek. And I've come all this way to see this!! Elsinore! I'd rather
go Elsewhere-inore,--say, Margate.

Think I shall put this in a bottle, cork it up, and send it overboard,
and you'll get it by Tidal Post. Whether I do this or not depends on
circumstances over which I may possibly have no control. Anyhow, at
dinner-time, _I shall ask for the bottle._ When you ask for it, see
that you get it.

Yours truly,
JETSAM

_(or Yotting Artist in Black and White). 10 A.M. Swedish time 9.5 in
English miles. Longitude 4 ft. 8 in. in my berth. Latitude, any amount
of._

* * * * *

AN EXCELLENT RULE.--We are informed that "extreme ugliness" and "male
hysteria" are admitted as "adequate disqualifications" for the French
Army. If the same rule only applied to the English House of Commons,
what a deal of noise and nonsense we should be spared!

[Illustration: A METROPOLITAN METAMORPHOSIS.

_The Awful Result of Persistent "Crawling."_]

* * * * *

THE DYING SWAN.

_(Latest Version, a long way after the Laureate.)_

"THAMES 'SWAN UPPING.'--The QUEEN'S swanherd and the officials
of the Dyers' and Vintners' Companies arrived at Windsor
yesterday on their annual 'swan-upping' visit, for the purpose
of marking or 'nicking' the swans and cygnets belonging to HER
MAJESTY, and the Companies interested in the preservation of
the birds that haunt the stream between London and Henley. It
is said that the Thames s