ays, I venture to believe they
would find nothing worth stealing.

A PRACTICAL MAN.

* * * * *

[Illustration: WASTED IRONY.

"WHO'S THAT DOWN-STAIRS, JANE?"--"SOME FRIENDS OF MINE, MA'AM."

"BUT YOU HAD SOME FRIENDS YESTERDAY, JANE!"--"YES, MA'AM."

"AND ON MONDAY NIGHT!"--"YES, MA'AM."

"DON'T YOU THINK YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A REGULAR DAY AT HOME EACH
WEEK?"--"THANK YOU, MA'AM! THAT WILL BE VERY NICE!"]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, May 8._--"What a day we are having, to be sure!"
said CHAMBERLAIN, rubbing his hands and smiling delightedly. Things
certainly pretty lively to begin with; just got into Committee on
Home-Rule Bill; CHARLIE (my DARLING) was to have opened Debate with
Amendment on first line of First Clause; but, as he subsequently
explained to sympathetic Committee, he was weighed down with feeling
of diffidence. House, touched with this unusual weakness on part
of Member for Deptford, readily accepted volunteered service of
CHAMBERLAIN, who undertook to say a few words on another Amendment
whilst DARLING was recovering.

No diffidence about JOSEPH. As he observed in stormiest epoch of
sitting, he was as cool as a cucumber. "A cucumber with full allowance
of vinegar and pepper," SQUIRE of MALWOOD added, in one of those
asides with which he varies the silence of Treasury Bench. Well there
was someone at that temperature. Committee, take it all together, in
volcanic mood. Peculiarity of situation, as SAUNDERSON put it, with
some mixing of metaphor, was that "it was the cucumber that kept the
pot a-boiling." Whenever any sign of placidity was visible, JOSEPH
sure to appear on scene, rub someone's hair the wrong way, or stir up
some slumbering lion with long pole.

"Ever stop to watch the Punch show in the streets, TOBY?" said
PLUNKET. "No, I suppose not; rather personal; recall days before you
went into politics. Confess I always do; been chuckling just now over
idea that here we have the whole thing played out. There's _Mr. Punch_
in person of Mr. G. Up comes a head, GRANDOLPH'S, or someone else's;
down comes the baton in the form of the Closure. Everyone supposes
that Law and Order are established and things will go smoothly, when
suddenly up springs JOEY, cool as a cucumber, and upsets everything
again. There's nothing new under the sun, not even proceedings in
ob