dress

In crimson puce or purple hair:
My Phyllis doesn't leave it there,

But less than ever doth she seem
Content with Nature's colour-scheme.

Her brow is scarlet; week by week
New tints bedeck her maiden cheek.

(To-day they wear the pleasing hue
Which Fashion calls "electric" blue,

And, when their owner's startled, show
A healthy blush of indigo.)

Her sense of artistry appears
In what she does about her ears;

With colours of the naval sort
She marks the starboard from the port.

Her lips are lemon; underneath
Appear her willow-pattern teeth.

* * * * *

But when, to serve another end,
She threatened to adopt a blend

Of tints with which I cannot cope--
The green and white and heliotrope,

"You know," said I, "your business best;
Myself, I lose all interest.

In other words, it may be said,
My love for you is frankly dead."

"Alas," she answered, "and alack!" ...
Her nose is now in mourning (black).

* * * * *

[Illustration: "TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION."]

* * * * *

NEW FEUILLETON. BEGIN IT TO-DAY.

JOSEPH LATE-USHER.

By CLEVER MAURICE.

CHARACTERS IN THE STORY.

THE DUCHESS OF KIMBERLEY (Ruby), a svelte aquiline-nosed woman of some
forty summers, with green hair and two aigrettes. She has been a widow
for a lonely decade.

THE EARL OF JOBURG, her son Guy, aged thirteen, who is about to go to a
public school, where he will be kidnapped for ransom.

LORD ARTHUR BOOBITRAPP, his uncle, who discusses the question of the
school with the Duchess. Lord Arthur is in favour of Eton, as he wishes
Guy to be a wet Bob and captain the cricket eleven; whereas the Duchess,
having a penchant for yellow stockings, favours Christ's Hospital. In
the end they compromise, and the boy is sent to a small private school
in Bermondsey, where the chief usher is

JOSEPH LATE, a superb creature with a wonderful personality. Joseph not
only ushes the school but loves the Duchess with a consuming love, and a
year after Guy has been at the school and defied all efforts to kidnap
him he tells the Duchess of the inflamed state of his cardiac penumbra.
No sooner has he done this than he trembles all over at the presumption
of a poor usher thus daring to address a Duchess; but the Duchess falls
in his a