“Does any gentleman know the French for ‘bloomin’ idiot’?”

A day or two afterwards, I happened to enter his omnibus again.

“Well,” I asked him, “did you get your French friend to Charing Cross all right?”

“No, sir,” he replied, “you’ll ’ardly believe it, but I ’ad a bit of a row with a policeman just before I got to the corner, and it put ’im clean out o’ my ’ead.  Blessed if I didn’t run ’im on to Victoria.”

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

THE SKATER.

BY WILLIAM CANTON.  ILLUSTRATED BY A. L. BOWLEY.

[Illustration]

      O’er glassy levels of the mere
        She glides on slanting skate;
      She loves in fairy curves to veer
        And weave her figure eight. 
    Bright flower in fur, I would thy feet
    Could weave my heart and thine, my sweet,
    Thus into one glad life complete! 
      Harsh winter, rage thy rudest: 
        Freeze, freeze, thou churlish sky;
      Blow, arctic wind, thy shrewdest—­
        What care my heart and I!

* * * * *

MY SERVANT ANDREAS

BY ARCHIBALD FORBES.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY FREDERIC VILLIERS.

[Illustration:  “ANDREAS.”]

I think it quite likely that some of my young American friends, about ten months ago, were burning to have an opportunity of accompanying General Miles down the Pacific coast, and of describing in glowing sentences to their countrymen at home how Uncle Sam’s young man turned to flight the Chilian insurrectionists, who were breathing out threatening and slaughter against the great Northern Republic.  There is an undoubted fascination in the picturesque and adventurous life of the war correspondent.  One must, of course, have a distinct bent for the avocation, and if he is to succeed he must possess certain salient attributes.  He must expose himself to rather greater risks than fall to the lot of the average fighting man, without enjoying any of the happiness of retaliation which stirs the blood of the latter; the correspondent must sit quietly on his horse in the fire, and, while watching every turn in the battle, must wear the aspect as if he rather enjoyed the storm of missiles than otherwise.  When the fighting is over, the soldier, if not killed, generally can eat and sleep; ere the echoes of it are silent, the correspondent of energy—­and if he has not energy he is not worth his salt—­must already be galloping his hardest towards the nearest telegraph wire, which, as like as not, is a hundred miles distant.  He must “get there,” by hook or by crook, in a minimum of time; and as soon as his message is on the wires, he must be hurrying back to the army, else he may chance to miss the great battle of the war.  The correspondent must be most things to all men; he must have the sweet, angelic temper of a woman, be as affable as if he were running for office, and at the same time be big and ugly enough to impress the conviction that it would be extremely unwise to take any liberties with him.