t's
not the same as when an Englishman says it. If I said, 'Will you be
Mrs. Willoughby?' that would be different; it would mean--"

"Yes," interrupted Sylvia rather breathlessly, "that, Tommy dear,
would be plain English, to which I could give a plain answer. I should
say--"

We had reached the brow of the hill. I mounted my bicycle and hurried
on.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Mistress._ "YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN IN A GOOD MANY
SITUATIONS. HOW MANY MISTRESSES HAVE YOU HAD, ALL TOLD?"

_Maid._ "FIFTEEN, ALL TOLD--AND ALL TOLD WHAT I THOUGHT OF 'EM."]

* * * * *

"1,000 EGGS IN ONE WHISKER."

_Daily Paper._

A much worse case than that of LEAR'S old man with a beard, who said
it was just as he feared.

* * * * *

"For all we know, Helen of Troy's best friends might have said,
'Helen has style and knows how to make the most of her good
points; but, honest, now, do you think she should have got the
apple?'"

_Evening Paper._

Certainly not. That's why Paris gave it to Aphrodite.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _First Ancient (with morbid fear of growing deaf,
breaking long silence)._ "THERE--IT'S COME AT LAST! YOU'VE BEEN
TALKING ALL THIS TIME AND I AIN'T HEARD A SINGLE WORD."

_Second Ancient._ "BAIN'T BIN TALKIN'--BIN CHEWIN'."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

Really I think that _Rhoda Drake_ (MURRAY) must be the most
preposterously startling story that I have read for this age. It makes
you feel as if you had had a squib exploded under your chair at a
temperance meeting. After beginning placidly about persons who live in
South Kensington (and are so dull that the author has to fill up
with minute descriptions of their drawing-rooms), somewhere towards
three-quarters through its decorous course it plunges you head over
ears into such tearing melodrama as is comparable only to Episode 42
of "The Adventures of the Blinking Eye" at a provincial cinema. I
am left asking myself in bewilderment whether Mr. C.H. DUDLEY
WARD, D.S.O., M.C., can have been serious in the affair. As I say,
practically all the early characters are of little or no account,
including _Rhoda_ herself. Indeed, nobody looks like mattering at all,
and the whole tale has, to be frank, taken on a somewhat sopori