u ever know a strike which did not hit the workman harder than the
master?

Did you ever know a hotel-keeper, whose "wax" lights would bear the test
of a tallow-chandler?

Did you ever know a Continental tourist who, if he unfortunately
happened to speak English, didn't everywhere discover he was charged at
least double for it?

Did you ever find a "professional" win a game of billiards of you
without assigning your defeat entirely to his "flukes?"

Did you ever know a cockney take to boating without dressing himself up
_a la_ T. P. COOKE?

Did you ever meet a diner-out of sufficient strength of mind to ask for
"cabbage?"

Did you ever hear a loo-player confess to having won more than "just a
shilling or two?"

Did you ever know a pic-nic go off without the awful apparition of a
"wops?"

Did you ever know a penny-a-liner who, in speaking of a fire, could
abstain from calling it "the devouring element?"

Did you ever find a Continental shopkeeper whose "_prix fixe_" might not
be proved a _lucus-a_-nonentity?

Did you ever start upon a railway journey without hearing the immortal
observation "_Now_ we're off?"

Did you ever know an "alarming sacrifice," which in practice did not
prove to be completely one of principle?

Did you ever in your life hail a City-bound omnibus that wasn't going
"a'most directly" back to Bayswater?

And as a final clincher--Did you ever know a cabman who, since the new
Act came in force, could by any eloquence be induced to give you change
for a shilling?

* * * * *

GETTING INTO THEIR GOOD BOOKS.

MR. G. V. BROOKE has advertised his intention to establish, out of the
profits of his acting, a "Free Library for the People." We hope that the
nation, in accepting the "tragedian's" books, will not pledge itself to
adopt all his "readings."

* * * * *

HOTEL AND TRAVELLING EXPENSES.

"MR PUNCH,--We have seen by the _Times_ how extortionate hotel-keepers
can be occasionally. In order to add my testimony in the matter, and
with a view to assist in finding a remedy, I have been looking over a
file of accounts which, from time to time, I have paid for my son. The
following document speaks for itself; it is a relic of a tour made by my
son to the Highlands of Scotland. The following seems to have been
incurred between 6 P.M. and 8 A.M. next day--

_s. d._
Dinner (Kailbrose and