ts to hide it,
Rolled to her very feet and rested there,
And when I laid my loving heart beside it
She only smiled at that incongruous pair--
Smiled, then in contrite pity for the gloomy
Air that I wore of one whose chance is gone,
Promised that she would be a sister to me
And sew the button on.

* * * * *

A Test of Endurance.

"The dancing will commence at 9 p.m. and conclude at 2 p.m. Anyone
still wanting tickets may procure same at the Victoria."

_East African Paper._

For ourselves, after seventeen hours' continuous dancing, we shall not
want any more tickets.

* * * * *

From a parish magazine:--

"A nation will not remain virulent which destroys the barriers
which protect the Sunday."

We are all for protecting the Sunday, but we don't want to remain
virulent. It is a terrible dilemma.

* * * * *

[Illustration: SITUATION: _Burglar caught red-handed._

_Woman._ "THE SORCE O' THE FELLER! 'E PRETENDED TO BE ME 'USBAND AND
CALLED OUT, 'IT'S ALL RIGHT, DARLIN'--IT'S ONLY ME.' IT WAS THE WORD
'DARLIN'' WOT GIVE 'IM AWAY."]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)

In looking at the title-page of _John Seneschal's Margaret_ (HODDER
AND STOUGHTON) no lover of good stories but will be saddened by the
reflection that the superscription, "by AGNES and EGERTON CASTLE," is
there seen for the last time. The double signature, herald of how much
pleasure in the past, is here attached to a cheerfully improbable
but well-told tale of the after-war about a returned soldier who was
mistaken for his dead fellow-prisoner and hailed as son, heir and
_fiance_ by the different members of the welcoming group in the home
that wasn't his. The descriptions of this home, by the way--a house
whose identification will be easy enough for those who know the
beautiful North-Dorset country--are as good as any part of the book.
If you protest that the resulting situation is not only wildly
improbable but becoming a stock-in-trade of our novelists, I must
admit the first charge, but point out that the authors here secure
originality by making the deception an unintended one. _John Tempest_,
who in the hardships of his escape has lost memory of his own
identity, never ceases to protest that he is at least not the other
_Jo