wrenching the future's secrets from their
lair.

"A letter is coming to you from some one," she says. "An important
letter."

And again, "I see a voyage over water."

Or very seriously, "There's a death."

You gasp.

"No, it's not yours. A fair woman's."

You laugh. "Only a fair woman's!" you say. "Go on."

But the cards have not only ambiguities, but strange reticences.

"Oh," little Miss Banks will say, her eyes large with excitement,
"there's a payment of money and a dark man."

"Good," you say.

"But I can't tell," she goes on, "whether you pay it to him or he pays
it to you."

"That's a nice state of things," you say, becoming indignant. "Surely
you can tell."

"No, I can't."

You begin to go over your dark acquaintances who might owe you money,
and can think of none.

You then think of your dark acquaintances to whom you owe money, and are
horrified at their number.

"Oh, well," you say, "the whole thing's rubbish, anyway."

Little Miss Banks's eyes dilate with pained astonishment.
"Rubbish!"--and she begins to shuffle again.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Tommy_ (_dictating letter to be sent to his wife_). "The
nurses here are a very plain lot--"

_Nurse._ "Oh, come! I say! That's not very polite to us."

_Tommy._ "Never mind, Nurse, put it down. It'll please her!"]

* * * * *

From "Notes for the Use of New Chaplains," by an Indian Archdeacon:

"I have only given advice on matters where, to my own knowledge,
an ignorance of procedure has led to adverse criticism with
regard to breeches of etiquette."

Somebody seems to have been making fun of the venerable gentleman's
continuations.

* * * * *

UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.

No. XXXIII.

(_From Theodore Roosevelt, U.S.A._)

It's bully to live in a country where you can say what you like about
the bosses, and that, Sir, is what I've been doing and mean to go on
doing to you. There's no manner of question about it, you're the biggest
boss and the most dangerous that we in this country have ever come up
against, and if our Government had only got a right idea of its bounden
duty we should have protested against your conduct, yes, and backed our
protest by our deeds long before this; but the fact is there's too much
milk and water in the blood of some of our big fellows. They whine when
they ought to be up and denouncing,