_The
Hairdressers' Encyclopaedia_).

PRESENCE OF MIND IN A PORBEAGLE.

DEAR SIR,--The following verses, though not strictly relevant to the
crocodile incident, commemorate an occurrence illustrating the extent to
which piscine intelligence can be developed in favourable circumstances:--

"There was an unlucky porbeagle
Who was picked up at sea by an eagle;
On reaching the nest
It began to protest
On the ground that the speed was illegal."

I am Sir, Yours faithfully,
GEORGE WASHINGTON COOK.

* * * * *

"Lieut.-Commander Kenworthy said it had been advocated in _The Times_.

The Premier: I will be prepared to believe anything of _The Times_, but
really I do not tink it has ever suggested tat."--_Daily Mail_.

Mr. LLOYD GEORGE is always ready to give _The Times_ tink-for-tat.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Guest_ (_to Fellow-Guest at garden-party who has offered to
introduce her to well-known Socialist_). "I DON'T THINK SO, THANKS. HE
LOOKS RATHER FEARSOME."

_Fellow-Guest._ "MY DEAR, HE'S ONE OF THE FEW DECENT PEOPLE HERE--BELONGS
TO AN OLD ENGLISH LABOURING FAMILY."]

* * * * *

I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER.

(_Carefully imitated from the best models, except that it has somehow
got into metre and rhyme._)

Four-and-ninety English winters
Having flecked my hair with snows,
I am ready for the printers,
And my publishers suppose
That these random recollections
Of a mid-Victorian male,
Owing to my high connections,
Ought to have a fairish sale.

Comrades of my giddy zenith,
Gazing back in retrospect,
I should say Lord Brixton (Kenneth)
Had the brightest intellect;
Though of course no age enfeebles
James Kircudbright's mental vim
(Now the seventh Duke of Peebles)--
I have lots of tales of Jim.

We were gilded youths together
In our Foreign Office days;
Used to fish and tramp the heather
At his uncle's castle, "Braes;"
I recall our wild elation
One day when we stole the hat,
At the Honduras Legation,
Of a Danish diplomat.

James had scarcely any vices,
His career was made almost
When the Guatemalan crisis
Caused him to resign his post;
He possessed a Gordon setter
On whose treatment by a vet
I once wrote _The Times_ a letter
Which has not been published yet.

Politi