dowel,
Willing to turn from pains so sharp
To some soft labour with the trowel.

Sooner than let our love-birds pine
For post-impressionistic dwellings,
With all the windows out of line
And curious humps and antic swellings,

The motley Muse's maundering nous
Cares nothing what the union rate is,
If any young things want a house
I'll build the kickshaw for them gratis.

Evoe.

* * * * *

Another Impending Apology.

"We are glad to hear that Canon N. S. Jeffrey has latterly made
such good progress that he is now able to bet downstairs each
day."--_Gazette-News for Blackpool._

* * * * *

"She was slightly troubled with sore chins, and went to the post
in scratchy fashion."

_Sporting Chronicle._

No wonder.

* * * * *

"THE SINCEREST FLATTERY."

[Illustration: General John Redmond. "ULSTER KING-AT-ARMS, IS IT? WE'LL
BE AFTHER SHOWIN' 'EM WHAT THE _OTHER_ THREE PROVINCES CAN DO!"

[See _Punch_, May 6, 1914.]]

* * * * *

[Illustration: Our large stores pride themselves on never bothering a
customer to purchase. Some of them go even further and seem to show
positive indifference. Above we see a customer resorting to extreme
measures to secure attention.]

* * * * *

AN ADVANCE FINALE.

There is an idea already fermenting in the brains of many publishers
that their present method of printing personal assurances as to the
merits of their new productions is unsatisfactory. It is felt that these
eulogies are open to the suspicion of prejudice and should be replaced,
or supplemented, by the advance publication of the final chapter of the
author's work. _Mr. Punch_, anxious to promote this excellent change by
the publication of a specimen finale, has pleasure in anticipating the
fifty-first, and concluding, chapter of Mrs. H-mphry W-rd's projected
romance, _The Winning of Aurora_; and he is convinced that his readers
will not rest till they have secured the remaining fifty chapters.

Aurora let fall the book she was reading, a celebrated pamphlet on the
Oxford Tractarian movement, in a cover which was a miracle of
Italo-Moroccan tooling, and gazed thoughtfully at the scene before her.
Viewed thus in outline, her head in repose had something of the delicacy
of a Tanagra figure, while to the e