guineas on the ticket during the preliminary examination.

"Twenty-nine pounds to you," he said wearily. He evidently knew the
strict rules of the game.

"But look at those legs," I said. "They're frightfully bent, aren't
they?"

"That's one of the best features about it," he said. "Real Queen Anne,
those legs are."

"Oh, were hers like that? I didn't know," I said. "Look here, I'll
give you twenty-eight pounds, spot cash."

"Very well," he said. "I like to do business."

"I beg pardon," said a voice behind me, which, in turning, I
discovered to belong to the assistant, "but that dresser's sold. The
gentleman who's just left bought it."

As I was looking for the ticket (which had disappeared), I couldn't
help overhearing the assistant's aside to his employer.

"Thirty-five guineas cash," he said.

There is something, after all, to be said for direct action.

* * * * *

"OLD FOLKS' TEA.

On the day of the party the Chief Constable has arranged for
a staff of Special Constables to escort home any person
requiring assistance."--_Provincial Paper._

This bears out what has recently appeared about the terrible results
of the tea-drinking habit.

* * * * *

"WANTED.--Skates and Boots for Leghorn Pullets."--_Advt. in
Canadian Paper._

They need a lot of exercise in the cold weather.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"CINDERELLA."

[Illustration: A HORSE-SENSE OF HUMOUR.

_Pipchin_. . . . . . . . . . . Mr. STANLEY LUPINO.
_Baroness Beauxchamps_ . . . . Mr. WILL EVANS.

]

It is a very delicate task that the annual pantomime imposes upon Mr.
ARTHUR COLLINS. He has to "surpass himself," but he must not do it
once for all or he would rob the critics of their most cherished
phrase. He reminds me of the constructors of our Atlantic
"greyhounds," each longer by a yard or two than the last, each swifter
by a fraction of a knot, each with a few more tons displacement,
all pronounced to be the final word in scientific invention, yet all
reserving something for the next time.

Certainly the present year marks an advance in one respect at
least--that the grotesque and the beautiful are kept reasonably apart;
the lovely colour-scheme, for instance, of the garden in Fairyland is
undisturbed by any element of buffoonery. There was a revival too of
topical allusiveness after the reticence proper to war-ti