O symbol of routine and office hours! 
    O emblem of the soft civilian status! 
  Shall I too deign to roof me from the showers
    With such an apparatus?

  Shall I consent to grasp within my hand
    The sign of serfdom and to get the habit
  Of marching like a mushroom down the Strand,
    A mushroom on a rabbit?

  Never.  O hateful sight!  And yet—­and yet
    I’m not so sure.  This month has been a dry one;
  June will most probably be beastly wet;
    P’r’aps, after all, I’ll buy one.

  EVOE.

* * * * *

    EAST IS EAST.

    “The Girl Guides are doing well....  Another guide was
    married this month to Corporal ——.  We wish them all
    happiness.”—­Diocesan Magazine (India).

Corporal ——­ appears to be a specialist.

* * * * *

“There are persistent rumours of a plot to bring back the old regime and put either a Hohenzollern or a representative of some other Royal house on the Thorne of Germany.”—­Canadian Paper.

EX-KAISER (loq.):  “No, thanks; I’ve had some.”

* * * * *

    “OXFORD FOR HOLIDAYS.—­Most beautiful city in England.  Good
    lodgings and boating.  Two golf links and fishing.”—­Advt. in
    Provincial Paper.

We seem to remember, too, some mention of an educational establishment in connection with the place.

* * * * *

   OUR HELPFUL CONTEMPORARIES.

“There have been cases, we believe, in which the height of a person has increased after the person had reached mature age, but it has always been suspected that this was due to greater uprightness.  A man who stoops always looks shorter than when he is standing quite upright.  But no such explanation as this can be given for an apparent increase of the human head.  If a head really requires a larger hat it must be because the head is larger.”—­Provincial Paper.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  HONOUR SATISFIED.

GERMAN DELEGATE.  “SIGN?  I’D SOONER DIE! (Aside) AFTER WHICH
PRELIMINARY REMARKS I WILL NOW SELECT A NIB.”]

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, May 19th.—­The coalminers lately received concessions in wages and hours that are going to cost the country twenty millions sterling in the present financial year.  The first result of this boon (teste Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES) is that they are turning out less coal per man than ever, and that the unhappy consumer must look forward to a further reduction in his already meagre ration.  It is rather hard upon Mr. SMILLIE, who daily dilates in the Coal Commission upon the hardships of the miner’s life, that his clients should let him down like this.