eat brig across the strait,
Where Scot to Scot may freely pass, go,
And Ulster find her natural mate
In consanguineous Glasgow.

O. S.

* * * * *

A HAZARD ON THE HOME GREEN.

Standing on our front door-step you can see our garden running down at a
moderate speed to our front gate. Or, conversely, standing at the front
gate, you can see it mounting in a leisurely fashion to the front door.
In either case it consists of two narrow strips of lawn bisected by a
well-kept perambulator drive. Beyond the grass on either side blooms a
profusion of bless-my-soul-if-I-haven't-forgotten-agains and other
quaintly named old-world English flowers. On the left-hand strip of
lawn, looking gatewards, is the metal pin to which the captive golf-ball
is tied. On the right is the pear-tree, to which later on we have to
affix a captive pear.

"What I like about the garden," I said to Araminta when we first moved
in, "is the fact that it is in front, so that visitors, instead of
saying in a perfunctory way, 'Have you got a garden, too? How
delightful!' will be forced to murmur, 'How sweet the clover smelt on
your lawn as we came up the drive. What a perfectly entrancing
golf-ball.' If I must go to the trouble and expense of keeping up a
private pleasaunce I want everybody to see the pleasantry of it at
once."

"Swank," replied Araminta. She is absurdly early-Georgian in the matter
of repartee.

Last Saturday I determined to mow the lawn. I put on my oldest suit of
clothes with the now fashionable slit-trouser leg, fastened the green
bonnet to the front of the car, and wheeled it out of the tool garage.
Araminta went out, saying airily that she would be back to tea. After a
little trouble I induced the instrument to graze the left-hand pasture
as far as the hobbled Colonel. Then, feeling that my shoulders wanted
opening a bit, I went indoors and fetched a brassie-spoon. I suppose I
must have been striking with unusual vehemence, but anyway, in playing a
good second to the fourteenth green, I sent the pin flying out of the
ground. The Colonel broke his parole and dashed rapidly to the topmost
boughs of the pear-tree on the right, carrying the rest of the apparatus
with him. There was nothing to do but to follow him, spoon in hand.

It was soon evident that the pear-tree had been over-looked during
spring-cleaning, for the foliage, though very luxuriant, was in an
extremely soiled condition.