o does when I don't."

They pause--their mouths remain agape. Slowly they close and smiles
succeed. Joy! A _reasonable_-sized face at last. What a relief after the
enormous faces, the great mouths, the Cyranese noses of the Big People who
are wont to come and peer. Here at last is a true face, a face that--no,
they both agree not to dwell unduly on the discovery.

Indifferent to each other once again they regard the special objects of
their attention, their hands waving gently in the air, seeking the fairies
that babies' hands are always trying to catch.

Ha! their hands have met.

"Hoo! It's a _reasonable_ hand. It's got proper fingers, not stumps of
bananas."

"Moreover," says Peter politely, "if you care to take advantage of my offer
you will find that it is properly moistened, succulent and suitable to a
baby's taste. You needn't mind; I prepared it myself."

"Goo! Gool-gur!" All is peace and chuckles. Hand-in-hand they survey their
mothers. "_Our_ mothers, yours--mine. Ha, ha--he, he--goo!"

The inner thoughts of the two babies may be hidden from me (I accept the
punishment), but I know--I _know_ what the two mothers are thinking of.
Twenty years hence, a paragraph in _The Times_: "Peter--Judy--" Oh, you
fatuous mothers!

L.

* * * * *

"Public interest remains unabated in the remarkable occurrences at the
poultry-house farm at Brickendon, where spirit rappings in the morse
code have been heard for weeks past.... One question put to the spirit
last night was 'How many people are outside?' And the reply was
'Rorty,' which proved to be correct."--_Liverpool Paper._

And possibly furnishes some clue to the identity of the spirit concerned.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Officer._ "WHAT HAVE YOU GOT THERE?"

_Lighterman._ "COAL."

_Officer._ "I CAN SEE THAT. WHAT KIND OF COAL?"

_Lighterman._ "BLACK COAL."]

* * * * *

MORE INTENSIVE PRODUCTION.

When first I learned to play the fool
In various (unaccepted) verses
There was, I found, one golden rule
For poets who would line their purses.
"If ye," it ran, "to wealth would mount,
For silk attire would change your tatters,
Mere quantity will never count;
Quality is the thing that matters."

Broadly this precept, too, was laid
On grosser forms of human labour;
_E.g._, on Jones's antique trade,
Or Bro