_Sylvanus_. "FOXES ARE SCARCE IN MY COUNTRY; BUT WE
MANAGE IT WITH A DRAG NOW AND THEN!"

_Urbanus_. "OH--ER--YES. BUT HOW DO YOU GET IT OVER THE FENCES?"]

* * * * *

UNDER A CIVIL COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

["What possible chance would Col. X., Member for ----, feel
that he had of fair play if he walked into the Opposition side
in a Division?"--_Evening Paper_.]

SCENE--_A Battle-field. Colonel X. discovered apparently dying
in the hour of victory._

_Faithful Aide-de-Camp_. The enemy run, Sir! We have beaten them off
on every side!

_Colonel_ (_faintly_). That is well! (_with a sigh_) and yet my heart
is heavy within me! Believe me, SMITH, I cannot die easily.

_F.A.-de-C._ And yet the vacancy thus created would be found a
stimulus to promotion! Have you thought of that, Sir?

_Col. X._ I have not forgotten it, SMITH, and as a politician the idea
is comforting. Ah, SMITH, would that I had always done my duty in
the House of Commons! But no, with a view to obtaining this command,
I voted against my convictions! I supported the Government in their
proposal to tax perambulators! It was cruel, unmanly so to do, but I
was weak and foolish! And now I cannot die easily! Would that I could
live to repair the past.

_Opposition Whip_ (_suddenly springing up from behind a limber a la_
HAWKSHAW _the Detective_). It is _not_ too late! Return with me to
Westminster forthwith. The Third Reading is down for to-night! With
a special train we shall be in time! You can yet record your vote!

_Col. X._ (_suddenly reviving_). Say you so? Then I _will_ recover! I
_will_ do my duty!

[_Exit, to vote against his Party, and to be put permanently
on the shelf, from a military point of view!_

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD's paper on Japan, in _Scribner_, for March, is
interesting and also amusing. The Japanese seemed to be a charming
people; and the Japanese women delightful as wives; but then they can
be divorced for being talkative.

_A propos_ of Japan, to judge from one of our LIKA JOKO's capital
illustrations of Hospital Nursing in _The English Illustrated
Magazine_, the Matron's room must be "an illigant place, intoirely";
while as for amusement, if the picture of a nurse giving a patient a
cup of ink by mistake for liquorice-water isn't a real good practical
side-splitter, the Baron would like to be informed what