I have sown my Wyandottes.
       * * * * *
It was the income-tax man that suggested the title that I have given
to my story.  I disagreed with him in toto.  But he persisted that it
wasn’t an “expense.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Ex-Soldier (to stout passenger).  “MIGHT I SUGGEST, SIR, THAT EITHER YOU PASS FURTHER DOWN THE CAR OR TAKE A COURSE OF PHYSICAL TRAINING?”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mr. Skivvington-Smyth (loudly). “COVENT GARDEN!” Taximan (equally loudly). “MARKET?”]

* * * * *

THE NOMADS.

  “There are no houses in the Town,”
  Said Mr. Smith (of Smith and Brown);
  I hardly like to put it down,
    But that’s what he asserted;
  So thereupon I went to Anne
  And told her of my brilliant plan,
  Which is, to purchase from a man
  A furniture-removal van,
    And have the thing converted.

  Within that mobile villa gay
  We shall not choose, though gipsies may,
  Through country lanes and woods to stray,
    Not likely.  We shall enter
  An up-to-date Bohemian lot,
  And, if you read The Daily Rot,
  You’ll find it has observed us (what?)
  Proceeding at a smartish trot
    Through London’s throbbing centre.

  And there will be some curious stirs,
  Unless my fancy greatly errs,
  At restaurants and theatres
    When our distinctive turn-out
  Lines up with all the others there,
  And we look out with quite an air
  And order the commissionaire
  Kindly to put the little stair
    That hangs behind the stern out.

  And, when at nights our prancing team
  (I have before me now a scheme
  To use auxiliary steam)
    Desires to seek its stable,
  Why, John—­I have not mentioned John;
  He is the man who sits upon
  The front of the Pantechnicon—­
  Will take them off.  And when they’re gone,
    And hush succeeds to Babel,

  We’ll rest within our home complete
  Wherever seems to us most sweet,
  And none shall say that such a street
    Or such a square is pleasant,
  But we shall answer straightway, “Yes,
  We used to live at that address;
  Quite jolly.  But we liked it less. 
  Than opposite the Duke of S.
    In Amaranthine Crescent.”

  But if in wandering to and fro
  We chance to see—­you never know—­
  One house that has “TO LET” to show
    And find report has tricked us,
  And there are houses in the Town,
  We’ll simply dump our chattels down
  And challenge Smith (of Smith and Brown)
  Or any landlord, bar the Crown,
    To blooming well evict us.

  EVOE.

* * * * *

    “A visit was paid to Exeter, yesterday afternoon, by
    Lieut.-General Sir Henry Crichton Selater, G.C.B., K.C.B.,
    C.B.”—­Provincial Paper.