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[Illustration:  “GET ON WITH YOUR SUPPER, ROBERT.  IT’S ONLY THE MISSUS, AND SHE DAREN’T SAY ANYTHING FOR FEAR I SHOULD DEMOBILISE.”]

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GARDENING NOTES.

Meconopsis cambrica (Welsh Poppy).  Owing to the wide popularity of the energetic daughter of the PRIME MINISTER we understand that the authorities at Kew have decided to re-name this plant Meganopsis.

Digitalis.—­The spelling of the homely name of this well-known plant is to be altered in the Kew List to Foch’s-glove; the suggestion of an interned German botanist that Mailed Fist would be more suitable not having met with the approval of the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society.

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    “SPAIN’S REPUBLICAN PARLIAMENT.

    Lisbon, Wednesday.—­It would seem that the Cabinet just formed
    by Senhor Tamagnini Barbosa will have in the next Parliament a
    moderate Republican majority.”—­Liverpool Daily Post.

No other journal seems to have noticed the re-annexation of Portugal by Spain.

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    “The task of fitting the square men created by the war into
    square holes is certainly going to be one of tremendous
    magnitude.”—­Lancashire Daily Post.

From some of the new Government appointments we gather that the PRIME MINISTER gave up the task in despair.

* * * * *

    “Wanted to purchase elephants, sound and without vice, and to
    sell a variety of pigeons at reasonable prices.”—­Pioneer
    (Allahabad).

But we doubt if the advertiser will be able to get all the elephants, however free from vice, into the old pigeon-house.

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[Illustration:  BRIGHTER CRICKET.]

* * * * *

THE FINANCIER.

He had sat at the same table in the same restaurant for years—­more years than he cared to count.  He was not as young as be used to be.

Always when he could he sat on the comfortable sofa-like seat on the wall side of the table.  When that was fully occupied he sat on the other side on an ordinary upright chair, in which he could not lounge at ease.

He sat there now discontentedly, keeping a watchful eye for vacancies in the opposite party.

Half-way through his meal a vacancy occurred.  He pushed his plate across the table and went round, sinking with a sigh into the cushioned seat.

The departing customer had left the usual gratuity under the saucer of his coffee-cup.  In a minute or two the waitress would collect the cup and saucer and the coins.

But the waitress was busy.  The room was full and there was the usual deficient service.