* * * * *

"AVIARIES, POULTRY AND PETS.

Lady ----'s Teeth Society, Ltd.--Gas 2s., teeth at hospital prices,
weekly if desired."--_Daily Paper_.

We are not told under which category Lady ----'s dentures come, but venture
to point out that in these days no one should make a pet of them.

* * * * *

MAXIMS OF THE MONTHS.

(_Composed during the recent Spring snowstorm._)

From January's start to close
It rains or hails or sleets or snows.

For atmospherical vagaries
The palm perhaps is February's.

To say March exits like a lamb
Is Falsehood's very grandest slam.

April may smile in Patagonia,
But here it always breeds pneumonia.

May, alternating sun and blizzard,
Plays havoc with the stoutest gizzard.

No part of England is immune
From frost and thunder-storms in June.

Only the suicide lays by
His thickest hose throughout July.

August, in spite of dog-days' heat,
For floods is very hard to beat.

The equinoctial gales, remember,
Are at their worst in mid-September.

Old folk, however hale and sober,
Die very freely in October.

November with its clammy fogs
The bronchial region chokes and clogs.

December, with its dearth of sun,
For sheer discomfort takes the bun.

* * * * *

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND.

In the course of a recent search for Italian conversation manuals I came
upon one which put so strangely novel a complexion on our own tongue that,
though it was not quite what I was seeking, I bought it. To see ourselves
as others see us may be a difficult operation, but to hear ourselves as
others hear us is by this little book made quite easy. Everyone knows the
old story of the Italian who entered an East-bound omnibus in the Strand
and asked to be put down at Kay-ahp-see-day. Well, this book should prevent
him from doing it again.

But its great attraction is the courageous personality of the protagonist
as revealed by his various remarks. For example, most of us who are not
linguists confine our conversations in foreign places to the necessities
of life, rarely leaving the beaten track of bread and butter, knives and
forks, the times of trains, cab fares, the way to the station, the way to
the post-office, hotel prices and washing lists. And even then we disdain
or flee from syntax. But this conversationalist embroiders and dilates