* * * * *

The legal profession has long been concerned by the fact that lawyers’ fees remain so fixed in a world given over to flux.  It has now been decided that, although the fees shall remain the same, less value shall be given.  For six-and-eightpence a solicitor will in future give only half his attention, by listening with only one ear.

* * * * *

COMMERCIAL CANDOUR.

    “EGGS FOR SALE.

    “Why go out of ——­ to be swindled?  Come to the ——­ Poultry Farm.”

* * * * *

    “IN MY GARDEN.

    “April 4.—­Now is a suitable time to saw sweet peas.”—­Daily
    Mirror.

When the stalks are very strong we always use an axe.

* * * * *

L’ALLEGRO.

  Haste thee, Peace, and bring with thee
  Food and old festivity,
  Bread and sugar white as snow,
  The bacon that we used to know,
  Apples cheap, and eggs and meat,
  Dainty cakes with icing sweet,
  And in thy right hand lead with thee
  The mountain nymph (not much U.P.). 
  Come, and sip it as you go,
  And let my not-too-gouty toe
  Join the dance with them and thee
  In sweet unrationed revelry;
  While the grocer, free of care,
  Bustles blithe and debonair,
  And the milkman lilts his lay,
  And the butcher beams all day,
  And every warrior tells his tale
  Over the spicy nut-brown ale. 
  Peace, if thou canst really bring
  These delights, do haste, old thing.

* * * * *

    “WINTER SPORTS IN FRANCE.—­Sledges were constructed out of
    empty ration-boxes, whilst the old flappers used for dispersing
    poison-gas from dug-outs did duty as snow-shoes.”—­Daily Paper.

The young flappers were no doubt better engaged.

* * * * *

PINK GEORGETTE.

Joyce, at breakfast that morning, had announced firmly that if I really loved her I would take the pattern up to town with me and “see what I could do.”  What she failed to realise was that, if I ventured alone into the midst of so intimately feminine a world as Bibby and Renns’ for the purpose of matching stuff called Pink Georgette, I should become practically incapable of doing anything at all.

The only redeeming feature about the whole nerve-racking business was that he found me as soon as he did.

“Good afternoon, Sir,” he said in a most ingratiating voice.  “What can we have the pleasure of showing you, Sir?”

He was tall and handsome, with a perfectly waxed moustache and a faultless frock-coat.  He bowed before me with a sort of solicitous curve to his broad shoulders, and the way he massaged one hand with the other had a highly soothing effect.

“Pink georgette, Sir?  Certainly, Sir.”  To my inexpressible relief he seemed to consider it the most likely request in the world.