ad put the
wind up them, and I wrote and accepted the substitute at once, because
Panmore liked it better even than the original picture. He said it was
an Alken and gave me far more than I would have thought of asking for
it, or for the original one.

About a week after selling it I received this wire from the Gallery:--

Please return painting sent in error. Very valuable Alken. Have
customer.

FERNDALE.

"Diamond cut diamond," I said to myself. And I replied thus:--

DEAR SIRS,--I received your wire, but regret that I cannot comply
with your request. Firstly, because I have already accepted the
picture which you regarded as mine or its equivalent, in place of
the one that was mine and is now yours; and, secondly, because my
friend the feoffee has already bought it, the one that was yours
and is now mine, or rather his (you know what I mean, don't you?),
and I haven't the heart to ask him to return it.

Perhaps yours (the one that is now yours and was mine before),
being the equivalent of the one that was yours and is now mine (or
rather the feoffee's), would suit your client. I can only suggest
your having another look for it; the matter so far as I am
concerned is at an end. Yours faithfully,

THEOPHILUS B. PIPER-CARY.

P.S.--You'll know it when you find it. There's a red cow in the
background.

* * * * *

"Sentence of Mike Ancon, found guilty of housekeeping, was
postponed yesterday afternoon."--_Manitoba Free Press._

This species of crime is almost extinct in England.

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE "HESITATION" WALTZ.]

* * * * *

THE RISING EGG.

Whatever may be the decline in the price of eggs their social
movement is clearly upwards. The following passage from _The Croydon
Advertiser_ gives an admirable life-history of the egg, from shell to
profit-sharing:--

"Eggs will be dated and graded and sold accordingly, and as soon
as they have done laying fattened for table purposes, also young
cockerels. They will be killed and plucked, and the feathers will
be sorted and sold in the best markets. So you see they will
receive full market price for their produce; then if they are
shareholders they will receive a further profit in the difference
between the cost and the selling, also the very big