tration: TANGIBLE.

_Second Groom (waiting at Tea for the nonce, and handing thin
Bread-and-butter--sotto voce_).

"CLAP TWO OR THREE BITS TOGETHER, MISS, THEN YOU'LL GET A BITE!"

* * * * *

PUZZLES FOR THE NEW YEAR.

_The Emperor of Germany._--To make a couple of public speeches without
making use ten times of the first personal pronoun.

_Mr. Stanley._--To escape an overwhelming and universal ovation on his
return.

_The Czar._--To increase the Naval and Military Estimates of his country
with one hand, and at the same time succeed in controlling so-called
"legitimate National aspirations" with the other.

_The Sultan._--To pay his way, and yet preserve a smiling countenance.

_The Gas-Stokers' Union._--To learn the lesson taught them by the course
of recent events, and grow wise in time, without making further
mischievous efforts to alienate public sympathy.

_Mr. Barnum._--To prove to the grumblers, who write to the Papers to
complain of the "Booking" arrangements in connection with "The Greatest
Show on Earth," that the management is perfect, and could not be better.

_The Emperor of Brazil._--To make ends meet on an income of nothing
a-year.

_The Covent Garden Lion._--To find that his quite sedate, leisurely, and
altogether proper performance is watched every night in breathless
suspense by an excited audience.

_Mr. Augustus Harris._--To think already how he can manage to make his
next year's Christmas Pantomime outdo even his,--this season's,--latest
triumphant effort.

_Mr. Gladstone._--How to fit the items of his new Radical programme
nicely in with his Home-Rule Scheme, with a view to making some sort of
stir with both in the approaching Parliamentary Session.

_The Recently Unrolled Mummy._--To discover how he came to be so long
neglected in a back room in Gower Street, and to find out, now that they
have pounced on him, who the dickens he was when "up and doing" in Old
Egypt thirty centuries back.

_The Authorities at the War Office._--How to satisfy an inquisitive
public that 18,000 troopers can be comfortably and efficiently mounted
on the 12,000 horses, the total number provided for them for that
purpose by those who are responsible for their supply.

_The London Omnibus Horse._--How to get supplied with a proper shoe,
that will enable him to keep on his legs with equal facility on granite,
Macadam, wood, or asphalte.

_The First Lord of the Admiralt