intense excitement on the part of the
Celestial audience, we arrived at the deciding crump-hole simultaneously.
When I say we arrived, I mean that Laxey had an eight-yard putt from a good
lie--an easy proposition with the whangee putter--and I was ten yards away
in as wicked a little crevice as you could wish to find.

"'If it doesn't shake your nerve, skipper,' said Laxey, 'I might mention
that my score is 543.'

"'You'd better give me the game, then,' I answered. 'I'm but a modest 520.'

"'Not jolly likely. You'll take at least twenty to get out of that burrow.
Besides, I know Wilkins is rotten at figures, and I claim a recount.'

"An audit and scrutiny showed that we were both 537, and although Laxey
held a distinct advantage in position I decided on a strenuous effort to
halve the game. I took a firm stance and the hockey stick and let drive for
the hole with a tremendous pickaxe stroke. Instantly there was a blinding
flash and an explosion, and, when we had finished picking sand out of our
ears and eyes and allayed the excitement of the Chinks, we discovered my
ball comfortably nestling in the crump-hole.

"'If assistance with derelict Mills bombs is allowed,' said Laxey, 'we've
halved.'

"'On the contrary,' I replied, 'as your ball is apparently missing I've
won.'

"And, if you believe me, we couldn't find Laxey's ball anywhere, though we
had seen it but a minute or two before. So I claimed the ten francs; but I
didn't mention to Laxey that the following morning I was passing a group of
the coolies and saw them with an object that looked suspiciously like
Laxey's ball, hammering it with a stick and trying to make it say _Bang_!"

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Constable_ (_to dreamy little foreigner_). "I DON'T KNOW
WHERE YOU WERE BORN, TICH, BUT I'LL GIVE ODDS YOU'LL DIE IN ENGLAND."]

* * * * *

"Wanted, Second Housemaid of three, Scotchwoman preferred; willing to
wait on table if required; comfortable situation."--_Daily Paper._

Possibly; but we always prefer our servants to do their waiting on the
floor.

* * * * *

HOME THOUGHTS FROM HIND.

1920.

Back in the years of youth, a thoughtless thruster,
I did adventure to the East and spurn
My native land, and foolishly entrust her
To other guardians pending my return;
And now time bears me to the second lustre,
And I am old and