My butcher was extremely gruff,
  And sold me—­oh, such horrid stuff;
  But I observe, since Peace began,
  Some traces of a better man.

  I find my grocer hard to please
  In little things like jam or cheese;
  Now that the men are coming back
  His scowl, I think, is not so black.

  My coalman is a haughty prince
  No tears could move or facts convince;
  But tyrants topple everywhere
  And he too wears a humbler air.

  My milkman was a man of wrath
  As he came down the garden path;
  But, since the Hohenzollern fell,
  I find him almost affable.

  And what is this?  My greengrocer
  (A most determined character)
  Approaches—­’13 style—­to say,
  “What can I do for you to-day?”

* * * * *

    “GERMAN CONSTITUTION.

    Bill Disposing of Old Prussia.”

    Manchester Guardian.

Tit for tat; Prussia had already disposed of Old BILL.

* * * * *

    “Mr. Cecil Harmswirth has vacated his iffict in the ’gardtn
    suburb’ at 0.  Downing Strtet.”—­Daily Mail.

To the evident consternation of Carmelite Street.

* * * * *

“‘I am an A.B.C. girl,’ said a passenger to The Daily Mirror, ’and have been eleven hours on my feet.  If a get a seat in the Dulwich omnibus, I shall have another hour’s standing before I get to my house.’”—­Daily Mirror.

It seems to be high time that the omnibus company adopted the railway regulation, “Passengers are requested not to put their feet on the seats, etc.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE NEW COMMERCIAL TRAVELLER.

PUCK, R.A.F. (to SHAKSPEARE).  “YOUR IDEA OF A GIRDLE ROUND ABOUT THE EARTH IN FORTY MINUTES IS A BIT TALL, BUT YOU BET YOUR IMMORTALITY WE SHALL GET AS NEAR IT AS WE CAN.”]

* * * * *

F. E.

A SIMPLE BIOGRAPHIC RECITATIVE BASED ON THE TONIC SOL-FA NOTE OF MI.

In ante-bellum days, ah me, when I a stuffman used to be, and proudly pouched a junior’s fee, the Law List styled me “Smith, F.E.”  Oh, how my place seemed small for me; not that I scorned the stuffman’s fee, but stuffy courts did not agree with me.  I dearly longed to be respiring often, fresh and free, the breath that was the life of me, so I became a live M.P.  And, lest the spacious H. of C. should fail to hold sufficiently the lot of air respired by me, said I, “A soldier I will be—­not one of Foot (that’s Infantry), nor yet the reg’lar Cavalry, for barrack-life will not suit me, yet ride I must the high gee-gee;” so I decided straight to be an officer of Yeomanry.  Drilling the troopers on the lea, the vent I craved for gave to me.  Moreover, on my high gee-gee I learned what galloping could be.