I am afraid I still--"

"Allow me to tell you all about myself," I said. And I did.

I was a little nervous as to how he would take it, but the event justified
me. When I opened my paper next evening I found the following words:--

"Ran across John Smith of Ravenscourt Park yesterday afternoon. Chatting
with him about one thing and another, he told me something of the methods
he has employed to bring about his present celebrity in that salubrious
suburb. He has never, it appears, written a book, collaborated in a review,
appeared in a night-club, lunched at the Bitz, sat on a committee, or been
summoned as a witness in a sensational divorce case. His record, I fancy,
must be one of the most thoroughly unique in Greater London."

There was no photograph of John Smith, but, biting partly into this
paragraph and partly into another on the opposite side of the column, was
one of Mortimer Despenser, the new film star, featured in _Scented Sin_,
which really did almost as well. Dear old _Du Beurre_!

EVOE.

* * * * *

MUSIC A LA MODE.

There was a young singer whose moans
Struck a chill to her auditors' bones;
So she had to explain
That she wasn't in pain,
But was trying to sing quarter-tones.

There once was a basso, a swain
Who came from the rolling Ukraine;
He could sing double D
From breakfast till tea
Without any symptom of strain.

There was a benevolent peer
Who wished to make Art less severe,
So he learned the Jazz drum
And bids fair to become
The black man's most terrible fear.

There once was a critic whose bane
Was his dread of a style that was plain,
So, resolved to refresh us,
He strove to be precious,
But sank to the nether inane.

* * * * *

"AMATEUR SNOOKER POOL CHAMPIONSHIP: S.H. FRY DEFLATED."--_Provincial
Paper._

It was noticed even during the Billiard competition that he never really
got the wind up.

* * * * *

"The chief obstacle to the development of water-power is usually the
question of finance, and if the scheme will not hold water from that
point of view it is not likely to float."--_Electrical Review._

And if it holds too much water it is certain to sink.

* * * * *

[Illustration: MORE ADVENTURES OF A POST-WAR SPORTSMAN.

_Irishman_ (_discussing "roar