is off with my last casting-line, hook and all.  A beauty he was, clear as silver and fresh from the sea.  Well, there is nothing for it but a walk back to the house.  I have lost one fly-book, two hooks, a couple of casting-lines, three salmon, a top joint, and I have torn a great hole in my coat.  On changing my dress before lunch, I find my fly-book in my breast pocket, where I had not thought of looking for it somehow.  Then the rain comes, and there is not another fishing day in my fortnight.  Still, it decidedly was “one crowded hour of glorious life,” while it lasted.  The other men caught four or five salmon apiece; it is their Red Letter Day.  It is marked in black in my calendar.

* * * * *

TOOTING.

["It is a noteworthy fact that while debates have been languishing at Westminster, at Tooting there have been Members enough to ‘make a House’ any day during the past fortnight, so keen an interest is the ‘Royal and Ancient’ game exciting.”—­Daily Telegraph.]

  What’s the use of hooting. 
  Or cir-cum-lo-cuting? 
      M.P.’s off
      To play at Golf. 
  All the way to Tooting!

  Petty points PAT’s mooting! 
  Chances not computing,
      M.P. slips,
      (Despite the Whips)
  Off to Golf at Tooting!

  Landlords may be looting,
  Tenants may be shooting;
      Where’s the fun
      In that?  Let’s run
  Off to Golf at Tooting!

  So M.P.’s are “scooting,”
  On-the-gay-galoot-ing;
      Cut the House
      (It shows their nous)
  For the Links at Tooting!

  There is joy in shooting,
  Wine-ing or cherooting,
      Dinners, Moors,
      Weeds—­all are bores,
  Compared with Golf at Tooting!

* * * * *

[Illustration:  CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS.

Tommy. “I HAD SUCH A BAD DREAM LAST NIGHT, GRANDPAPA!”

The Admiral. “TELL IT ME, TOMMY.”

Tommy. “OH NO!  IT WOULD ONLY FRIGHTEN YOU AS IT FRIGHTENED ME!”]

* * * * *

“BEYOND THE DREAMS OF AVARICE.”

["FIFTY POUNDS Reward will be gratefully paid to any Lady or Gentleman who will ASSIST in RECOVERING a valuable HEIRLOOM....  Anyone with wealthy or influential friends can at once secure above reward.  Address, &c.”]

[Illustration]

I am an impecunious young man, and, the other day, on seeing this Advertisement in the Times, I was seized with a wild desire to “at once secure above reward.”  Said I to myself, “I have ’wealthy and influential friends.’  There is my cousin’s uncle, who has, I believe, thirty thousand a-year, though I never saw any part of it, or of him, for the matter of that; and there is my own aunt by marriage, whose second husband is