* *

MUSICAL CARETAKERS.

["A LADY is willing to give a thoroughly-good HOME to a GRAND
PIANO (German make preferred), also a COTTAGE, for anyone going
abroad."--_Morning Paper._]

A GRAMOPHONE of small to medium age can be received as p.g. in select
RESIDENTIAL HOTEL. Young, bright, musical society. Separate tables.

* * * * *

WILL any LADY or GENTLEMAN offer hospitality on the Cornish Riviera
for the winter months to an EX-SERVICE CORNET suffering from chronic
asthma (slight)?

* * * * *

BAG-PIPES (sisters) in reduced circumstances owing to the War, seek
sit. as COMPANIONS or MOTHER'S HELPS, town or country.

* * * * *

From a list of forthcoming productions:--

"THEATRE ROYAL, ----. Boo Early."

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Old Lady._ "AND HOW IS YOUR DEAR MOTHER, TO-DAY?"

_Child of the Period._ "OH, SHE'S ROTTEN."]

* * * * *

YARNS.

When the docks are all deserted and the derricks all are still,
And the wind across the anchorage comes singing sad and shrill,
And the lighted lanthorns gleaming where the ships at anchor ride
Cast their quivering long reflections down the ripple of the tide,

Then the ships they start a-yarning, just the same as sailors do
In a hundred docks and harbours from Port Talbot to Chefoo,
Just the same as deep-sea sailormen a-meeting up and down
In the bars and boarding-houses and the streets of Sailor-town.

Just the same old sort of ship-talk sailors always like to hear--
Just the same old harbour gossip gathered in from far and near,
In the same salt-water lingo sailors use the wide world round,
From the shores of London river to the wharves of Puget Sound,

With a gruff and knowing chuckle at a spicy yarn or so,
And a sigh for some old shipmate gone the way that all men go,
And there's little need to wonder at a grumble now and then,
For the ships must have their growl out, just the same as sailormen.

And they yarn along together just as jolly as you please,
Lordly liner, dingy freighter rusty-red from all the seas,
Of their cargoes and their charters and their harbours East and West,
And the coal-hulk at her moorings, she is yarning with the best,

Telling all the same tales over many and many a time she's told,
In a voice that's someth