has or hasn't, she looks particularly pleasing.

_Mrs. B._ (_drily_). You were always a little eccentric in your taste!
Why, surely there must be Mr. PENNYFATHER ROBSON. How smart he looks!
Where _can_ he have come from?

_B._ The Bankruptcy Court! (_Drily._) You were never particularly
famous for discrimination. As I live, the SMITHS! [_He bows with
effusion._

_Mrs. B._ And the STUART JONESES! (_She kisses her hand gushingly._)
By the way, dear, didn't you say that the PLANTAGENET SMITHS were
suspected of murdering their Uncle before they inherited his property?

_B._ So it is reported, darling. And didn't you tell me, my own,
that the parents of Mr. STUART JONES were convicts before they became
millionaires?

_Mrs. B._ So I have heard, loved one. (_Starting up._) Come, CHARLEY,
we must be off at once! The GOLDHARTS! If they catch us, _she_ is sure
to ask me to visit some of her sick poor!

_B._ And _he_ to beg me to subscribe to an orphanage or a hospital!
Here, take your prayer-book, or people won't know that we have come
from church!

[_Exeunt hurriedly._

* * * * *

HOMO SAPIENS.

(_A QUESTION FOR THE NEXT ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSEMBLY._)

["When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in
the Tertiary period ... the chances that man as at present
constituted, should be a survivor from that period seem
remote, and against the species _Homo Sapiens_ having existed
in Miocene times almost incalculable."--_Address of the
President of the Anthropological Section, Dr. John Evans, at
the Leeds Meeting of the British Association_.]

When then did _Homo Sapiens_ first appear?
Upon whose speculations shall we bottom us?
Contemporary he with the cave bear,
But hardly with the earliest hippopotamus.
The happy Eocene beheld him not;
That cheerful epoch when a morning ramble
Among the mammoths, without gun or shot,
Must have been such a truly sportive scramble.
The pleasant Pliocene preceded him.
Apparently, poor bare, belated _Homo_;
His spectre seems to haunt, despondent, dim,
Lakes--how unlike Killarney, Wenham, Como!--
Where dens called Dwellings may have left some trace.
Before "quarternary times "--whatever _they_ were--
_Homo_ appears not to have shown his face.
And then its features far from gracefully gay were.
So EVANS, who the mystery of Man's birth
Into our Cosmos carefully unra