* * * * *

Our Cautious Contemporaries.

    “What can be said with truth is that business in the New Loan for the
    first two days is easily AZ per cent. better for new money than for the
    same period on the occasion of the last loan.”—­Evening Standard.

* * * * *

“ANCIENT ORDER OF HIBERNIANS.

    State President Fee has requisitioned a large supply of stationery; he
    announces that he will at once begin an active canvas of the State to
    revive old divisions and organize new ones.”—­Texas Newspaper.

Just as if he were at home in dear old Ireland.

* * * * *

    “Athens, Wednesday.

The ex-Premiers who were consulted yesterday by the iKng, were unanimously of opinion that the Entente Note was not yesterday by the King were unanimously as its acceptance would imply that Greece contemplated an attack on General Sarrail’s rear.”—­Continental Daily Mail.

Yet there are some people who complain that the situation in Greece is not entirely clear.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE APPLE OF DISCORD.

AUSTRIA.  “WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?”

GERMANY.  “SPOILS OF ROUMANIA.”

AUSTRIA.  “WELL, IF IT’S NOT BIG ENOUGH TO SPLIT YOU MIGHT LET US HAVE THE
CORE.”

GERMANY. “‘THERE AIN’T GOING TO BE NO CORE.’”]

* * * * *

A WAY NOT TO PAY OLD DEBTS.

“Hullo, old thing!” said Herbert gloomily; “lots of Congrats.  Lucky devil, you,” and he sighed unobtrusively.

I had forgotten that once upon a time Adela had refused to walk out with Herbert because of his puttees, which she said were so original that they distracted her attention from the way he proposed.

Remembering this now, I offered my cousin a sympathetic cigarette, which he, shaking himself free from care, accepted; after which he began to borrow ten pounds—­an achievement which, I am proud to say, cost him nearly twenty minutes’ hard labour.

Not so very long afterwards Adela and I had a honeymoon, followed by a picture-postcard from Herbert.  He said he was sorry he hadn’t been there to throw boots at us, but he was convalescing on the Cornish Riviera, the exact spot being marked with a cross; also one could not send money by postcard, but I was not to think he was forgetting about that fiver he had borrowed.

The first part of this document caused Adela to wonder vaguely if wounded officers ought to convalesce in chimney-pots, but the last words gave me some twinges of a more sincere alarm.  Was Herbert’s delusion a permanency, or merely a slip of the pen?

“Adela,” I decided, “let’s ask Herbert to dinner as soon as ever he leaves the roofs of the British Riviera.”