“Ess!” he cried, delighted.  “Ess!  ’Zactly.”  And then, after a frightful effort to master his stammer, his face the colour of claret, his eyes buried in their flesh, his old body twitching violently, he burst out with the boast:  “I was d——­d handsome feller.  Once.  Ess!  Handsome’s paint.  Ho!  Ho!  Girls mad about me!”

Happiness was restored.  We drew our chairs nearer to the fire, filled our pipes, and laughed away the winter afternoon in the best of good spirits.

“We’ve got nothing to complain of,” says Mr. Wells.  “Everybody is kind to us.  We’ve got our health, thank God!  We’ve got a roof over our heads.  We’ve got food in the locker.  We’ve generally got a bit of terbaccer somewhere about the place.  And we’ve done with the sea.”  After a pause, he adds, “When the Call comes, we shall be here to answer it.  Early or late, we shall be ready; me and Old Joe.”

Once more he leans across to the pirate.  “I’m telling the genneman,” he shouted; “that we’ve nothing to complain about, that when the Call comes we shall be ready.”

“Ess!” shouts Old Joe cheerfully, with his pipe in the air.  “Always ready!  That’s me.  Always ready.  But, don’t want to die.  Not yet.  No!  No fear.  Why should I!  Happy and jolly I am.  Happy and jolly!” And once more he throws himself back with twitching shoulders, the chin fallen, the eyes scarcely visible in their bags of flesh, and laughs till the tears come.

“He’s wunnerful hearty for eighty-two,” says Mr. Wells quietly.

HITS AND MISSES
[Sidenote:  Anon.]

  Shop-windows shivered in the frames
  Do advertise the women’s aims.

THE BROKEN WINDOW
[Sidenote:  Anon.]

  Till Venus saw a Suffragette
  Cried she, “But women should regret
  A broken glass!” But then, next minute,
  “Poor thing! she saw her image in it!”

WIT ON OCCASION

Lamb said that the greatest pleasure in life was to do good in secret and be found out by accident.

* * * * *

“I suppose” said Lamb, “that Johnson was thinking of Shakespeare making Hector talk about Aristotle when he says,

And panting Time toils after him in vain_.”

* * * * *

A clergyman who had several livings was under discussion.  “Why, such fellows look at a cure of souls like a cure of herrings—­so much per hundred.”

“Ah, but the herring cures fulfil their contract,” said Jerrold.

He called clerical pluralists_ polypi, parsons with many stomachs and no hearts.

* * * * *

A young prince had just been born and they were firing royal salutes to celebrate the occasion.  A bystander exclaimed, “How they do powder these babies!”

* * * * *