* * * * *

[Illustration:  Magistrate.  “BUT WHAT WERE YOU DOING TO ALLOW A MAN OF THE PRISONER’S PHYSIQUE TO GIVE YOU A BLACK EYE?”

Constable.  “ON THE MORNING OF TOOSDAY, THE FIRST OF APRIL, YOUR WORSHIP, I WAS ON DOOTY OUTSIDE THE ‘DOOK OF WELLINGTON’ PUBLIC-’OUSE, WHEN, AT THE INSTIGATION OF THE PRISONER, MY ATTENTION WAS DRAWN TO SOMETHIN’ THAT WASN’T THERE.  ’E THEN ’IT ME.”]

* * * * *

THE LETTERS THAT COUNT.

    ["Meanwhile one sighs for the letters which do not
    exist.”—­C.K.S., in “The Sphere.”]

  I never have felt any hunger,
    Apart from my shortage of gold,
  For the spoils of the autograph-monger,
    The screeds of the sages of old;
  By envy unvexed and unsmitten
    I study the connoisseur’s list,
  But I sigh for the letters unwritten,
    Or those that no longer exist.

  The notes, for example, that Hector
    Despatched to his Andromache,
  When, tied to a troublesome sector,
    He couldn’t get home to his tea;
  Or the messages CAESAR kept sending
    To pacify QUEEN CLEOPAT,
  When, simply from fear of offending
    The mob, he avoided her flat.

  But even more impetus giving,
    More apt to inspire and refresh,
  Are the letters addressed to the living
    By writers no more in the flesh—­
  The epistles to WILCOX from SHELLEY,
    From LANDOR to Mrs. JOHN LANE,
  From SWIFT to Miss MARIE CORELLI,
    From POPE to Sir THOMAS HALL CAINE;

  The instructions to NORTHCLIFFE from BONEY,
    The comments of SHAKSPEARE on SHAW,
  COLUMBUS’S hints to MARCONI,
    TOM HUGHES’S to young ALEC WAUGH,
  Or a letter to cheer her supporter
   In CHARLOTTE’S own delicate fist,
  Enclosing her photo to SHORTER—­
    A letter which does not exist.

  For relics of this sort I hanker,
    For these, when they’re offered for sale,
  I will beg overdrafts from my banker
    And bid on a liberal scale;
  For the arts of the DOYLES and the LODGES
    Are bound to contribute new grist
  To SOTHEBY’S mills and to HODGE’S
    In the letters which do not exist.

* * * * *

AN AID TO GENUFLEXION.

    “The Rev. ——­, minister of ——­ U.F.  Church, was yesterday
    presented with pulpit robes, hassock, hood and cap by his
    congregation.”—­Scotch Paper.

* * * * *

    “Schools of cokery are being ‘snowed’ under with
    applications,”—­Evening Paper.

We ourselves call almost every day to ask for more cokery.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Employer (who has given his foreman a ticket for Pianoforte Recital).  “AND HOW DID YOU ENJOY THE MUSIC LAST NIGHT?”