“Down Bond Street gaily would I float,
    Buy chairs, pianos, tables,
  With here and there a sealskin coat,
    And here and there some sables.

  “I’d slip, I’d slide, I’d jazz, I’d glide,
    I’d fox-trot, one- and two-step,
  And show with pardonable pride
    My skill at every new step.

  “I’d dance until my soles wore raw,
    When, tired of dissipation,
  I’d lie in bed whole weeks and draw
    My out-of-work donation.

  “And when that palled I’d rise to see
    What fortunes cooks are earning,
  And how the ladies long for me
    With dumb pathetic yearning.

  “I flit about, I skip, I roam
    Through houses past the telling,
  Through many a stately ducal home,
    And many a Mayfair dwelling.

  “I chatter in the servants’ hall,
    I make a sudden sally,
  And with the parlourmaid I brawl
    Or bicker with the valet.

  “I murmur under moon and stars
    With blue and khaki lovers,
  I linger in resplendent bars
    With golden taxi shuvvers.

  “But out again I come and know
    That Fate will fail me never,
  For wars may come and wars may go,
    But cooks go on for ever.”

* * * * *

    “SUN ECLIPSE IN MAY.

    WIRELESS OPERATORS’ HELP ASKED.”

    Daily Paper.

We ought all to put our shoulders to the wheel and make this Victory Eclipse a big thing.

* * * * *

    “All the Lumpkins are clever and some of them are
    brilliant....  The head of the family, Lord Durham, is an
    exceptionally ready and witty man.”—­The Globe.

Readers of GOLDSMITH may suggest that Anthony Lumpkin, Esq., was not a brilliant Lumpkin; but it may well be that he was only distantly connected with that branch of the family from which Lord DURHAM traces his descent.  In this connection a correspondent suggests the following train of thought:  Lambton—­Lambkin—­Lump(ofcoal)kin.

* * * * *

    “We stand at the noon of the greatest day the world has seen,
    with all the hideous darkness of the night behind and all the
    glory of the dawn before.”

    Mr. Arthur MEE in “Lloyd’s News.”

It looks as if the dawn would be a day late.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  GERMANY DRAWS THE PEN.

“IT’S NOT EXACTLY A SABRE, BUT I DARESAY I CAN CONTRIVE TO KEEP IT RATTLING FOR A BIT.”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, May 5th.—­Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES is the maid-of-all-work of the Ministry.  Deputising for the PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE he had an opportunity of displaying an encyclopaedic knowledge which fully justified his position as President-elect of a Canadian University.  Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS probably thought he had floored him with a poser on “gas-scrubbing,” but Sir AUCKLAND knew all about it.