wonted cheeriness;
For, as I drain my mellow
Allowances of ale,
He seems to sigh, "Old fellow,
_Will_ PUSSYFOOT prevail?"

* * * * *

=Commercial Candour.=

"Cleaning and pressing suites, $3. Dyeing and pressing suits, $6.
Clothes returned looking like now."

_Advt. in_ "_Standard_" (_Buenos Aires_).

* * * * *

From an election address:--

"As a woman and a ratepayer, I realise the importance
of eliminating all unavoidable expenditure in Municipal
undertakings."

_Local Paper._

We trust she will be elected and show how it's done.

* * * * *

"After an interval of seven years, the 'Beasts' Ball, a pre-war
popular annual event in aid of the Royal Society for Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals, is to be held at the Guildhall, on Wednesday,
November 10. Tickets can be obtained from Mrs. Bushe-Fox and from
Mrs. Wolf."--_Cambridge Review._

It sounds just like _Uncle Remus_.

* * * * *

[Illustration: =ECHOES OF THE COAL STRIKE.=

"WHAT'S THE KID SHOUTING ABOUT? THERE AIN'T NO RACING."]

* * * * *

=OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.=

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

"Two households, both alike in dignity...." I ask you, could the
novel, of which this quotation is the text, have been written by
anyone but Mr. JOHN GALSWORTHY? Actually indeed the disputants belong
to two branches of the same family, that grim tribe of _Forsytes_,
whom you remember in _The Man of Property_, and of whose collective
history the present book is a further instalment (not, I fancy, the
last). I should certainly advise anyone not already familiar with the
former work to get up his _Forsytes_ therein before attacking this;
otherwise he may risk some discouragement from the plunge into so
numerous a clan, known for the most part only by Christian names, with
their complex relationships and the mass of bygone happenings that
unites or separates them. This stage of the tribal history is called
_In Chancery_ (HEINEMANN), chiefly from the state of suspended
animation experienced by the now middle-aged _Soames_ ("Man of
Property") with regard to his never-divorced runaway wife _Irene_.
Following the ruling _Forsyte_ instinct, _Soames_ wants a son who
will keep together and even increase his great possessions, while
contin