ns upon him!
_) Phew! I see it all. "A plant." _That's_ why he met me on the
door-step. Of course he doesn't live here at all. Gave a respectable
address, and _watched for me outside!_ And the sleek-spoken shark is
gone! So are my two guineas!

[_Retires a sadder, and a wiser man_.

* * * * *

THE MAN OF SCIENCE.

[It has been suggested, with reference to an amusing article
in _Blackwood,_ on a new religion, that science is equal to
it.]

PROFESSOR PROTOPLASM _sings_:--

I'm a mighty man of science, and on that I place reliance,
And I hurl a stern defiance at what other people say:
Learning's torch I fiercely kindle, with my HAECKEL, HUXLEY, TYNDALL,
And all preaching is a swindle, that's the motto of to-day.
I'd give the wildest latitude to each agnostic attitude,
And everything's a platitude that springs not from my mind:
I've studied entomology, astronomy, conchology,
And every other 'ology that anyone can find.
I am a man of science, with my bottles on the shelf,
I'm game to make a little world, and govern it myself.

I'm a demon at dissection, and I've always had affection
For a curious collection from both animals and man:
I've a lovely pterodactyle, some old bones a little cracked, I'll
Get some mummies, and in fact I'll pounce on anything I can.
I'm full of lore botanical, and chemistry organical,
I oft put in a panic all the neighbours I must own:
They smell the fumes and phosphorus from London to the Bosphorus:
Oh, sad would be the loss for us, had I been never known.
I am a man of science, with my bottles on the shelf;
I'm game to make a little world, and govern it myself.

* * * * *

OUR OTHER "WILLIAM."--Question by the G.O.M. on quitting the
North,--"Stands Scotland where it did?"

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

[Illustration]

Read _The World and the Will_, by JAMES PAYN, says the Baron.
Successful novelist is our "J.P." for England and the Colonies
generally. "The profits blazoned on the Payn," is a line he quotes,
with a slight difference of spelling, in his present three volumes,
which is full of good things; his own "asides" being, to my thinking,
quoth the Baron, by far the most enjoyable part of his books. Herein
he resembles THACKERAY, who used to delight in taking the reader
behind the scenes, and exhi