k it wonderfully clever. I
know, when I wrote my answers in her album, it took me days of thought
to get them done in prose, and even then they turned out the most
ordinary, commonplace things. However I thought they pleased MARY,
and now POMFRET steps in with his confounded rhymes. Mrs. BELLAMY's
father once published a volume of verse, and is still talked of in the
household as "your grandfather the poet." She told me that she thought
"a faculty for versification was the mark of a truly refined and
delicate mind." Bah! POMFRET's one of the most selfish and calculating
ruffians outside a convict prison, and always haggles over his
luncheon bills at the Club, till the head-waiter and all the rest
nearly go off their heads.

However, I had to come to Billsbury, nilly-willy. Met the Committee
after dinner. They were anxious that I should do some canvassing soon,
and wanted me, when next I spoke, to explain myself more fully (1) on
the Temperance Question and the question of Compensation to Publicans;
(2) on the Women's Suffrage Question; (3) on the Labour Question;
(4) on Foreign Policy; and (5) with reference to the Billsbury Main
Drainage Scheme. I said I would, but I should probably require more
than one speech to do it in. Afterwards a very solemn member of the
Committee, whose name I forget, got up and made a long speech, in
which he observed that my habit of appearing in dress clothes at
the meetings had annoyed a good many of my supporters, and that
he ventured to suggest to me, for my own good, that I should wear
ordinary dress. It seems a good many of the lower lot thought it
looked uppish. I'm glad enough not to have to do it any more. There
were other points, but I'm too tired to remember them. By the way, I
have subscribed to about a dozen more Clubs and Institutions, and have
promised to get Mother to open a bazaar here at the end of the month.
Back to London to-morrow. What a life!

* * * * *

THE LATEST "LABOR PROGRAM."

(_BY A NEW-UNIONIST._)

I am all for myself, and 'tis perfectly true
That the "labor" I love is regardless of "u."
But, _per contra_, informing my "program" you see
Though I wink (with two I's), I eliminate "me."

* * * * *

[Illustration: POLITICAL BOATING-PARTY DURING THE RECESS.

(_By Our Own Instantaneous Photographer_.)]

* * * * *

IN A LOCK.--A WHITSUNTIDE WARBLE.

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