for Man-ches-ter!"

* * * * *

_Kelly's Directory for_ 1893.--Invaluable, and considered as
"portable property" (to quote _Pip's_ friend), admirably suited for
the pocket of any individual who should happen to be about
twenty-five feet high. _How to use it?_ Why--see inside--it is full
of "Directions."

* * * * *

[Illustration: "CHRISTMAS IS COMING!"]

* * * * *

MIXED NOTIONS.--No. II. UGANDA.

SCENE--_As before, a Railway-carriage in a suburban morning train to
London. Persons also as before--namely, two_ Well-informed Men, _an_
Inquirer, _and an_ Average Man.

_First Well-informed Man_ (_laying down his paper_). So the Government's
going to stick to Uganda, after all. I had a notion, from the beginning,
they wouldn't be allowed to scuttle.

_Average Man._ Ah--I don't know that I'm particularly enthusiastic about
Uganda.

_Inquirer._ Why not?

_A. M._ What are we going to get out of it?--that's the question. We go
interfering all over the world, grabbing here, and grabbing there,
merely in order to keep other people out; and then some nigger King,
with a cold in his head, sneezes as he passes the Union Jack. That's an
insult to the flag, of course; so off goes an expedition, and, before
you know where you are, we've spent about ten millions, and added a few
thousand acres of swamp to the Empire. Why can't we leave things alone?
Haven't we got enough?

_First W. I. M._ That's all very well, I daresay; but you forget that
the Berlin Conference made Uganda one of our spheres of influence.

_Inquirer._ When was that?

_First W. I. M._ Why, just after the Franco-Prussian War. They all met
in Berlin to settle up everything--and we got Uganda.

_Inquirer._ I thought it was later than that, somehow.

_First W. I. M._ Well, anyhow, it was somewhere about that time. I don't
pledge myself to a year or two. But what I say about Uganda is this.
We're there--or rather the Company is--and we should simply disgrace
ourselves before the whole world if we chucked up the sponge now. And,
if we did, we should have France or Germany nipping in directly.

_Second W. I. M._ They can't.

_First W. I. M._ Why not?

_Second W. I. M._ Why not! Because it's our sphere of influence whatever
happens.

_Inquirer_ (_timidly_). I'm afraid you'll think me very ignorant, but I
don't quite know what a "sphere of in