Doctor T. (dubiously).  Humph!  Suppose you say yours with it, JOSEPH?

Master Joe (airily).  As you please, Sir.  Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another, you know.

Mrs. S. (aside).  Smart boy, very!  I fancy I should have more confidence in him if he were a little less so.

Doctor T. (gravely).  You see, JOSEPH, there are some things in your earlier school career which your well-wishers would fain—­forget.  You were rather what is called, I think, “a young Radical” once, not to say “a bit of a pickle.”  You seemed not altogether out of sympathy with such revolutionary proceedings as “revolts” and “barring-outs,” and even talked once, if I remember rightly, of putting the Principals “to ransom”—­doctrines better worthy of a Calabrian brigand than of a public school-boy.  But let bygones be bygones.  Now that you are in a position of responsibility and—­respectability, you will, of course, abandon all such revolutionary rubbish, and think not of yourself, but others; consider less the wild wishes of your inferiors than the wise commands of your betters.

Master Joe (solemnly).  Oh, of course, Sir!  And now, if you, Dr. Poloni—­ahem!—­Dr. T., and Mrs. Pip—­I mean Mrs. S., have quite finished your wig—­I should say wise counsellings, I think I’ll—­go out and play! [Does so.

* * * * *

DYNAMITICAL ARGUMENTS.—­The Apostles of “the Gospel of Dynamite” would, if they could, speedily convert a whole town—­into a ruin.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  A STARTLING PROPOSITION.

Seedy Individual (suddenly and with startling vigour)—­“AOH?  FLOY WITH ME ERCROSS THER SEA, ERCROSS THER DORK LERGOON!!”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

With a spice of Tristram Shandy, a dash of Ferdinand Count Fathom, and none the worse for the quaint flavouring thus given to the style and manner of the romance, The Blue Pavilions by “Q.” is about as good a tale of rapid dramatic and exciting adventure as the Baron remembers to have read,—­for some time at least.  There is in it little enough of love, though that little is well and prettily told, but there is no lack of fighting at long odds and at short intervals, of hairbreadth escapes, and of such chances by land and sea as keep the reader, all agog, hurrying on from point to point, anxious to see what is to happen next, and how the expected is to eventuate unexpectedly.  The story is for the most part told in a humorous devil-may-care-believe-it-or-not-as-you-like sort of way which compels attention, occasionally raises a smile, and always excites curiosity.  As a one-barrel novel, this ought to score a gold right in the centre.