My father, M. le Duc DI SPEPSION, belonged to one of the oldest French families.  He had many old French customs, amongst others that of brushing his bearded lips against my cheek.  He was a stern man, with a severe habit of addressing me as “Mon fils.”  Generally he disapproved of my proceedings, which was, perhaps, not unnatural, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration.  Why have I mentioned him?  I know not, save that even now, degraded as I am, memories of better things sometimes steal over me like the solemn sound of church-bells pealing in a cathedral belfry.  But I have done with home, with father, with patriotism, with claret, with walnuts, and with all simple pleasures. Ca va sans dire. They talk to me of Good, and Nature.  The words are meaningless to me.  Are there realities behind these words—­realities that can touch the heart of a confirmed marroneur?  Cold and pitiless, Nature sits aloft like a mathematician, with his balance regulating the storm-pulses of this troubled world.  Bah!  I fling myself in her teeth.  I brazen it out.  She quails.  For, since the accursed food passed my lips, the strength of a million demons is in me.  I am pitiless.  I laugh to think of the fool I once was in the days when I fed myself on Baba au Rhum, and other innocent dishes.  Now I have knowledge.  I am my own good.  I glance haughtily into—­[Ten rhapsodical pages omitted.—­ED. Punch.] But there came into my life a false priest, who was like the ghost of a fair lost god—­and because he was a fair lost, the cabmen loved him not—­and he had to die, and lie in the Morgue—­the Morgue where murdered men and women love to dwell—­and thus he should discover the Eternal Secret!

CHAPTER IV.

Again—­again—­again!  The moon rose, shimmering like a Marron Glace over Paris.  Oh!  Paris, beauteous city of the lost.  Surely in Babylon or in Nineveh, where SEMIRAMIS of old queened it over men, never was such madness—­madness did I say?  Why?  What did I mean?  Tush! the struggle is over, and I am calm again, though my blood still hums tumultuously.  The world is very evil.  My father died choked by a marron.  I, too, am dead—­I who have written this rubbish—­I am dead, and sometimes, as I walk, my loved one glides before me in aerial phantom shape, as on page 4, Vol.  II.  But I am dead—­dead and buried—­and over my grave an avenue of gigantic chestnuts reminds the passer-by of my fate:  and on my tombstone it is written, “Here lies one who danced a cancan and ate marrons glaces all day.  Be warned!” THE END.

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QUITE EXCEPTIONAL THEATRICAL NEWS.—­Next Thursday at the Vaudeville, the Press and the usual Free-Admissionaries will be let in for Money.

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MORE KICKS THAN HALFPENCE.

“The root of Volunteer inefficiency is to be ascribed to the Volunteer officer.  The men are such as their officers make them ...  The force is 1,100 officers short of its proper complement.”—­Times.

[Illustration:  General Redtape (of the Intelligence Department, W.O.) “WHAT!  GOING TO RESIGN!”