s to
the reporter that he was born in the shadow of the Parthenon. This
mixing up of one's peculiarities, habits, and nationality with those
of the illustrious individual whose name he bears, is capable of being
given many laughable twists and has been taken advantage of in many
amusing skits.

Besides the interviews there are fashion notes, society and sporting
notes, architectural news, and receipts. Among the latter is a receipt
for making Welsh rare-bits that should be in the possession of every
one addicted to them.

[Illustration: THE "P.D.'S" PREPARED FOR WORK.]

The club has been regaled at various times with comic opera (with
scenery painted for the occasion), readings and recitations; and at
one of the annual dinners an illustrated history of the club and its
members was given on an ingeniously contrived miniature stage.

Every dinner, every voyage of discovery, every reception, and in short
anything happening that would be of interest to the absent members, is
written up by some one for their edification. The P.D.'s out-Wegg Mr.
Wegg in the matter of dropping into poetry, and although its quality
cannot be presumed to approach that selected by that famous individual
for the delectation of Mr. Boffin, it being, not to mention the matter
of theme, very often afflicted with a deplorable weakness or strength
in its feet, yet it can be said of it, as in the case of Mercutio's
wound, that it serves.

[Illustration: CORNER IN THE "P.D.'S" ROOMS.]

Most of these literary efforts eventually find a place in the
scrapbook, and their perusal reminds us of many a joyous evening.

"We seem to see, to taste, to hear,
Joys that have passed; who say too fleet
The rush of time? Things passed are dear."

This, then, is a slight account of the P.D.'s, and if their doings be
branded as folly, it is to them at least a very innocent and delicious
sort of folly, and just the thing to free them from the perplexing
problems of the day and fit them to grapple with a freshened and
renewed energy those of the morrow.

Notes.

The new office building of the Chicago Varnish Company, now in the
course of erection at the corner of Dearborn Avenue and Kinzie Street,
Chicago, from the designs of Mr. Henry Ives Cobb, covers a plat of
ground 45 x 90 feet. It is in the style of the brick architecture of
Holland, which has been recently adopted in several instances in New
York and Philadelphia, notably by Mr. Frank Mile