because they find them all right, or fear to go
further afield to begin all over again. But every now and then it
happens, no matter how good the tailor, that a coat is stubborn. It goes
on being wrong. Fitting after fitting leaves it even worse than before;
and the result is that one either loses one's temper and bangs out of
the place and never enters it again, or, not wishing to hurt the
tailor's feelings, one accepts defeat and gives the coat away the next
day at considerable personal loss. In other words, a time comes when one
either cannot, through disgust, bring oneself to visit one's tailor
again on that matter, or when one cannot, through sympathy, bring
oneself to ask him to do any more. Don't you know that?"

They agreed.

"Very well then. This is where the clearing-house comes in. The tailor
there is prepared to tackle such cases as those I have described. He
will come to the coat with an open mind and put it right. You can ask
him, without any false delicacy, to do so because it is his business.
That's what London most needs," I concluded.

"I daresay you're right," said another of the party; "but in my opinion
what London most needs is a good restaurant which has pork-pie on its
bill of fare."

* * * * *

THE MILITANT SCANDAL.

[Illustration: I.--The Sex pays the Penalty.

_Algernon (suddenly to his aunt and cousin)._ "Look here, I hope you
both understand that when we get to the Academy I don't know you. I
can't be seen there with women after this Sargent business!"]

* * * * *

"An extraordinary amount of destruction and annoyance is
annually perpetrated by the somewhat unsociable creatures known
as wasps."--_Amateur Gardening._

They are still more annoying when they are sociable.

* * * * *

"Masterman jumped out of the conveyance, which also contained
several ladies, and, overtaking the animals, succeeded in
turning them into a telegraph pole."

_Lincolnshire Echo._

This trick is a favourite one with all good conjurers, but rarely comes
in so opportunely. The second part of it--in which the telegraph pole is
turned into a couple of rabbits--is rather in the nature of an
anti-climax.

* * * * *

_The Pall Mall Gazette_ on John Burns:--

"_Johannes locutur est; res finite est._ Or so we hope."

We, too, always hoped at school