ied."--_Daily Paper._

What are we coming to!

* * * * *

"THE GARDEN.

VIOLINS.--For sale, several second-hand Violins."--_Local Paper._

They should harmonize well with the violas in the next bed.

* * * * *

"Mr. ---- (the bride's brother) was at the organ, and played the
'Bridle March' (Lohengrin)."--_Local Paper._

While the happy pair were on their way to the halter.

* * * * *

"An advertisement in a morning paper for 20 laborers to do store
work resulted in 400 applicants assembling in front of the
Petersham P.O., where the advertiser had promised to meet them.
To their intense disgust he failed to materialise. The general
opinion is that the advertisement was a hoar."

_Australian Paper._

A frost anyway.

* * * * *
[Illustration: =THE USES OF GESTURE.=

A sixpenny-bit--plain.

One penny--with aplomb.]

* * * * *

"G.B.R.L."

G.B.R.L.'s are an old-established convention in my family. Joan and
Pauline ("Porgie" _libentius audit_) are exceptional authorities on
the animal world in general; exceptional, at any rate, for their
years, which respectively total four-spot-six and two-spot-five. They
confound their parents daily with questions relating to the habits of
marmots or the language of kiwis. But they never talk about
"lions," _tout court_. A lion is, _ex-officio_ and _ipso facto_, a
Great-Big-Roarin'-Lion--always has been: in short, a G.B.R.L.

It reminds me of a man I know who was made a G.B.E.; but that's
another story, and Joan wouldn't see the joke of it anyhow, though I
know she would smile politely.

But in this matter of lions, from which I am tending to digress, the
old G.B.R. convention has just been weighed in the balance and found
wanting. It came about in this wise. Joan's and Porgie's Uncle Barney
(his nose is _retrousse_, if anything, only he had the misfortune to
be born on St. Barnabas' Day) departed the other day for Afric's sunny
shores--for Algiers, in fact--to nurse a tedious trench legacy. This,
of course, was a matter of great concern to his nieces, in whose eyes
he is distinctly _persona grata_, owing to his command of persiflage
and taste in confectionery.

I went into the nursery on the fateful morning to break the sad news.
My daughters were at breakfast and I was