said to be the double of Mr. WINSTON
CHURCHILL. Since this announcement it is stated that the poor fellow has
been inundated with messages of sympathy.

* * *

"The secret of success," says Mr. W. HARRIS, "is hard work." Still, some
people would scorn to take advantage of another man's secret.

* * *

Wives, said the Judge of the Clerkenwell County Court recently, are not so
ignorant that they do not know what their husband's earnings are. There is
no doubt, however, that many workmen's wives simply pocket the handful of
bank-notes their husbands fling them on Saturday night without stopping to
count them.

* * *

There were no buyers, it is stated, for fifty thousand blankets offered by
the Disposals Board last week. We have all along maintained that, though it
would take time, the Board would wear its adversaries down.

* * *

According to an official list recently published the Government employs
over three thousand charwomen. The number is said to be so great that they
have to take it in turns to empty Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN'S portfolio.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Showman._ "DON'T GET HIM TOO TAME, PROFESSOR. HE'S GOT TO
GO FIVE ROUNDS WITH THE BOXING KANGAROO WHEN YOU'VE FINISHED."]

* * * * *

A CRICKET MANNERISM.

A writer commented recently in an article in _Punch_ on the advantage to a
cricketer of some harmless mannerism, giving as an instance Mr. P.F.
WARNER'S habit of hitching up the left side of his trousers and patting the
ground seven times with his bat. This homely touch reminded me irresistibly
of Rankin. Not that Rankin resembles Mr. WARNER even remotely in any other
way. But Rankin has a mannerism, one which is fairly harmless, too, as a
general rule. If on one occasion, of which I will tell you, it had
unfortunate results, there was then a combination of circumstances for
which Rankin was not entirely responsible. That much I now feel myself able
to admit. At the time I could see nothing good about Rankin at all.

Rankin resides in our village of Littleborough, and is by trade what is
known as a jobbing gardener. On Thursdays he is my gardener, on Wednesdays
Mrs. Dobbie's gardener, and so on. On Saturday afternoons he plays cricket.
Or at least he dresses in (among other garments) a pair of tight white
flannel trousers and a waistcoat, and joins the weekly game.

Recently we met in deadly combat the neighbouring village