eemed to jump a good deal higher than
the horse did. They ought to be trained to keep close under you,
oughtn't they? [ROBERT _wonders if she is as guileless as she looks._

_Capt. Cropper_ (_to the R.M._). Oh, takes about eight months, with
a lesson every day, to make a man efficient in the Cavalry, does it?
But, look here--I suppose four more lessons will put _me_ all right,
eh? I've had _eight_, y'know.

_R.M._ Well, Sir, if you _arsk_ me, I dunno as another arf dozen'll do
you any 'arm--but, o'course, that's just as _you_ feel about it.

[_Captain CROPPER endeavours to extract encouragement from
this Delphic response._

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE RUSSIAN WOLF AND THE HEBREW LAMB.

(_After a well-known Picture._)]

* * * * *

TIT-WILLOW.

(_A NEW VERSION._)

["Last year I fed the tomtits with a cocoanut, suspended on a
stick outside my window, and they came greedily. This year I
forgot all about it, but, hearing a clamour in a fuchsia-bush
outside my study window ... I found myself besieged by an
army of tomtits ... Was it memory, or association of ideas, or
both?"--_Rev. F.G. Montague Powell, in the "Spectator."_]

On a bush in a garden a little Tomtit
Sang "Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"
And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit
Singing 'Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow'?"
"I've had nothing to eat for three days," he replied,
"Though in searching for berries I've gone far and wide,
And I feel a pain here in my little inside,
O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"

Now his poor little cheeks had grown haggard and thin,
O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!
And his self was a shadow of what it had been,
O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!
"By the kind Mr. Powell last year was I fed
With a cocoanut stuck on a stick," so he said,
"And without this again I shall shortly be dead,
O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"

So he gathered an army who twittered all day
"O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"
But a cocoanut soon made them all cease to say
"O Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"
And the truth of my story you must not assail,
For the dear old _Spectator_ has published the tale.
Though those who will read it can scarcely well fail
To say "Willow, Tit-willow, Tit-willow!"

* * * * *

"The Passing of Arth