beaming, gleaming, streaming.

There was a moment's emotional silence, broken by a thunder of rapturous
applause. The Song Scena, all too short, was finished.

Anxious not to risk spoiling the impression, I arose and left hastily
before the next turn.

* * * * *

Illustration: _She._ "HERBERT, I CAN'T FIND MY BATHING-DRESS ANYWHERE!"

_He._ "SEE IF YOU'VE GOT IT ON."

* * * * *

"Young M'Pherson, the Blackford jumper, is anxious to fix up a match
for a long jump with anybody in Scotland. A week ago he did 5-1/2
ft., but he asserts he can beat this hollow if called upon."

_Edinburgh Evening News._

If M'PHERSON will say just how young he is, we will find a suitable
nephew to take him on. Tommy (aged eight) did 6 ft. 1 in. yesterday, but
asserts that he slipped.

* * * * *

A MIDSUMMER MADNESS.

The girl who shared Herbert's meringue at dinner (a brittle one, which
exploded just as he was getting into it) was kind and tactful.

"It doesn't matter a bit," she said, removing fragments of shell from
her lap; and, to put him at his ease again, went on, "Are you interested
in little problems at all?"

Herbert, who would have been interested even in a photograph album just
then, emerged from his apologies and swore that he was.

"We're all worrying about one which Father saw in a paper. I do wish you
could solve it for us. It goes like this." And she proceeded to explain
it. Herbert decided that the small piece of meringue still in her hair
was not worth mentioning and listened to her with interest.

On the next morning I happened to drop in at Herbert's office.... And
that, in short, is how I was mixed up in the business.

"Look here," said Herbert, "you used to be mathematical; here's
something for you."

"Let the dead past bury its dead," I implored. "I am now quite
respectable."

"It goes like this," he said, ignoring my appeal.

He then gave me the problem, which I hand on to you.

"A subaltern riding at the rear of a column of soldiers trotted up to
the captain in front and challenged him to a game of billiards for
half-a-crown a side, the loser to pay for the table. Having lost, he
played another hundred, double or quits, and then rode back, the column
by this time having travelled twice its own length, and a distance equal
to the distance it would have travelled if it had been going in