*

Illustration: ALADDIN AND THE MINER'S LAMP.

THE GENIE. "I AM THE SLAVE OF THE LAMP. I THINK YOU SUMMONED ME."

MR. SMILLIE. "YES, I KNOW. BUT I DIDN'T REALISE YOU'D BE SO UGLY."

* * * * *

Illustration: "YES, A NICE LITTLE BUS. BUT I SAY, OLD TOP, THE
FOOTBOARDS ARE DEUCEDLY LOW. IF YOU RAN OVER ANYONE YOU MIGHT BE
CAPSIZED--WHAT?"

* * * * *

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY SHOCKER.

John Antony Grunch was one of the mildest, most innocent men I ever
knew. He had a wife to whom he was devoted with a dog-like devotion; he
went to church; he was shy and reserved, and he held a mediocre position
in a firm of envelope-makers in the City. But he had a romantic soul,
and whenever the public craving for envelopes fell off--and that is
seldom--he used to allay his secret passion for danger, devilry and
excitement by writing sensational novels. One of these was recently
published, and John Antony is now dead. The novel did it.

Yet it was a very mild sort of "shocker," about a very ordinary murder.
The villain simply slew one of his typists in the counting-house with a
sword-umbrella and concealed his guilt by putting her in a pillar-box.
But it had "power," and it was very favourably reviewed. One critic said
that "the author, who was obviously a woman, had treated with singular
delicacy and feeling the ever-urgent problem of female employment in our
great industrial centres." Another said that the book was "a brilliant
burlesque of the fashionable type of detective fiction." Another wrote
that "it was a conscientious analysis of a perplexing phase of
agricultural life." John thought that must refer to the page where he
had described the allotments at Shepherd's Bush. But he was pleased and
surprised by what they said.

What he did _not_ like was the interpretation offered by his family and
his friends, who at once decided that the work was the autobiography of
John Antony. You see, the scene was laid in London, and John lived in
London; the murdered girl was a typist, and there were two typists in
John's office; and, to crown all, the villain in the book had a
boar-hound, and John himself had a Skye-terrier. The thing was as plain
as could be. Men he met in the City said, "How's that boar-hound of
yours?" or "I like that bit where you hit the policeman. When did you do
that?" "_You_," mark you. Old friends took him aside and whispered,
"Very sorry to hear you