* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE SPREAD OF EDUCATION.

Maid.  “NO, MUM, I’M NOT GOING TO STAY IN THIS HOUSE TO BE INSULTED BY HAVING ‘SLAVEY’ WRITTEN ON THE MAT.”]

* * * * *

DAILY AND MAILY.

Mr. Daily burst into the room, slamming the door behind him, to find Mr. Maily seated before the fire.

“Maily, you’re not getting things done,” he shouted as he walked swiftly up and down the Turkey carpet.

“Only buttoning my spat, Daily,” said Mr. Maily.  Then he too, springing from his chair, walked rapidly to and fro.  But whereas Mr. Daily chose the route between the window and the motto, “Do something else NOW!” Mr. Maily took the line between the fireplace and “Keep on keeping on!” for they seldom felt compelled to stick to one direction.

“Maily, I’m worried,” exclaimed Mr. Daily in passing.  “Things seem to be easing down.  Even you are not so nimble as you were.  This silence of the public troubles me—­haven’t been saying things about us for a long time.”

“Some people even praise us,” remarked Mr. Maily, disgust mingling with the perspiration on his face.

“We’ll be damned if we put up with praise,” Mr. Daily declared.

“We shall.  We’d give praise if they’d damn us,” said Mr. Maily.

“Never be funny, Maily, if you can help it,” warned Mr. Daily.  Then he remarked wistfully, “If they’d only burn us again!”

“Couldn’t we go for the Archbishop of CANTERBURY?” asked Mr. Maily.  “To be burnt during morning service in a cathedral—­”

“No, these church-people couldn’t be roused, Maily.  Too much dillydally about them.  They’d never fall to it.”

Mr. Daily jabbed his thumb against a white bell-push, and a clerk appeared.  “Got enough work to do?” asked Mr. Daily.

“And then some,” said the clerk.

“Well, get on with it,” shouted Mr. Daily impatiently, and pressed a red bell-push.

“Plenty doing?” he asked the compositor who appeared.

“Twice that,” said the compositor.

“Then go to it,” barked Mr. Daily.  Turning to behold Mr. Maily mopping his brow, he cried, “For heaven’s sake don’t let anybody see you standing still, Maily.”

“I was only thinking,” said Mr. Maily.

“Whatever for?” asked Mr. Daily.

“Do you suppose—­”

“Suppose nothing.  Know!”

“How would it be to—­to denounce beer?” asked Mr. Maily.

“Gad, but you’ve still got pluck,” said Mr. Daily with something like admiration.  “They’d burn us right enough.  But there is such a thing as too much pluck, Maily.  Think again, if you must think.”

“No,” Mr. Daily went on, “I doubt if a satisfactory burning can be worked—­it only comes by accident.  Meanwhile, if the public won’t talk about us, we must boom ourselves;” and he sprinted to a yellow bell-push to summon the editor.