“And don’t you ever work?”

“Work! bless you, no.  I can’t afford to work!  If I did, I should have to pay the Income Tax myself!” returned the T.W.M., with a grin.

“Then who does contribute to this evidently highly-important source of revenue?

“Why, the professional men, under Schedule D!” cried the hardy son of toil.  “The authors with families, and the City clerks.  All that set, you know.  They pay the Income Tax, sure enough.  It’s as much as they can do to keep bodies and souls together.  But somebody must pay—­why not they?—­pay for themselves—­and for me!”

* * * * *

THE DUMB SHOW.—­It sounds odd that the serious pantomime, L’Enfant Prodigue, the play without words, should be “the talk of London.”

* * * * *

LEAVES FROM A CANDIDATE’S DIARY.

[Illustration:  Canvas and Scrutiny.]

“George Hotel,” Billsbury, Friday, April 25th.—­Arrived this morning in order to attend a “Monstre Open Air Conservative Fete, which was held in the grounds of the Billsbury Summer Palace.  The programme was a very attractive one.  First, there was a “reception of town and county delegates and their ladies” by the Earl and Countess of ROCHEVIEILLE.  The Earl is a scrubby little fellow of about sixty, who looks more like an old-clothes-man than anything else.  Norman noses—­at least their descendants in this generation—­are curiously like the Semitic variety sometimes.  The name is pronounced “Rovail,” and both the Earl and Countess get blue with rage if anybody makes a mistake about it, as nearly all the delegates did.  They stood on a raised dais, and received delegates’ addresses to the number of about thirty.  Lady ROCHEVIEILLE is a stout lady—­very.  It was a blazing hot day, and she was “overcome” just as she was shaking hands with Colonel and Mrs. CHORKLE, who were accompanied by BENJAMIN DISRAELI CHORKLE.  The rest of the CHORKLE family, including WILLIAMINA HENRIETTA SMITH CHORKLE, who was in a nurse’s arms, were somewhere about the grounds looking for the “Magic Haunts of the Fairy Bulbul,” and eating enormous quantities of macaroons, which I had given them.  Colonel CHORKLE rather lost his head when Lady R. collapsed.  He made an effort to pick her up, but had to drop her heavily on the boards of the dais.  Eventually, however, she was carried away and revived, and the proceedings went on.  There were Conservative merry-go-rounds, Conservative negro-minstrels, Conservative acrobats and Conservative dancing bears, distributed about the grounds.  I was taken about by Alderman MOFFAT and HOLLEBONE, who introduced me right and left to hundreds of my supporters and their wives and daughters.  At the end of it all I felt as if I had got a heavy sort of how-do-you-do smile regularly glued on my face.  One of my chief supporters is an undertaker named JOBSON.  HOLLEBONE brought him up to me and