e offer to FRISCO came
from London or New York. Meanwhile we draw our own conclusions.

***

With reference to the horse that recently refused at the third jump
and ran back to the starting-post, we are asked to say that this only
proves the value of backing horses both ways.

***

"No man," says a writer in a daily paper, "can sit down and see a girl
standing in a crowded Tube train." This no doubt accounts for so many
men closing their eyes whilst travelling.

***

Mr. DEVLIN, M.P., has communicated to the Press a scheme for solving
the Irish problem. This is regarded by Irish politicians generally as
a dangerous precedent.

***

A defendant in a County Court case heard in London last week stated in
his evidence that two of his daughters were working and the other was
a typist at the Peace Conference.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "HOW PLEASANT IT IS, MY DEAR HORACE, TO PLAY WITH ONE'S
TOYS WITHOUT INCURRING THE RISK OF HAVING ONE'S ENJOYMENT MARRED BY
THE TRAGIC DISCOVERY OF THEIR TEUTONIC ORIGIN!"]

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

From a placard in a shop-window:--

"Do you buy Tea, or do you buy _our_ Tea?"

* * * * *

"Should a customer cut his hair and shave at the same time,
the price will be one shilling."--_Advt. in "Daily Gleaner"
(Jamaica)_.

Not a bit too much for such ambidexterity.

* * * * *

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

I thought the cruel wound was whole
Which left my inside so dyspeptic;
That Time had salved this tortured soul,
Time and Oblivion's antiseptic;
That thirty years (the period since
You showed a preference for Another)
Had fairly schooled me not to wince
At being treated like a brother.

When last I saw the shape I wooed
In coils of adipose embedded,
Fondling its eldest offspring's brood
(The image of the Thing you wedded),
I placed my hand upon the seat
Of those affections you had riven
And gathered from its steady beat
That your offence had been forgiven.

And now, to my surprise and pain,
Long past the stage of convalescence,
The wound has broken out again
With symptoms of pronounced putrescence;
And, from the spot where once was laid
Your likeness treasured in a locket,
The trouble threatens to invade
A tenderer place-