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[Illustration:  WILD WEST KENSINGTON.

OUR LITTLE FRIEND, TREMLOW, WHOSE DAILY WALK TO THE CITY LEADS PAST THE HORTICULTURAL EXHIBITION, IS NOT A BELIEVER IN THE IMPORTATION OF THE RED VARIETY OF FOREIGN EXOTICS.]

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SLY OLD SOCRATES!

(A FRAGMENT FROM THE VERY NEWEST “REPUBLIC.")

Thrasymachus-Shiptonides (after introducing a Deputation).  What we demand is a legal reduction of the hours of labour, and what we want of you, SOCRATES, is your invaluable aid in getting it.

Socrates (smiling).  Most heartily do I wish you may get it—­in both cases.  But how say you; is the principle of permanence in a state or community, or class, best effected by harmony, or as it were, unity of action in all its members?

All (after looking at each other, and rubbing their chins).  How not, SOCRATES?

Socrates (rubbing his hands).  Entirely so!  And your class then are unanimous in favour of a legal reduction of the hours of labour?

Thrasymachus-Shiptonides (bothered).  Well—­ahem!—­hardly so, perhaps.  But (valiantly), at least three-quarters of a million who met in the Park gathering at sixteen platforms, were substantially agreed.

Socrates. Humph!  Over forty-six thousand to each platform.  That’s a far greater number than even I ever addressed.  How did you count them, or ascertain their views?

Thrasymachus-Shiptonides (flustered).  Well, I’ve had twenty years’ experience of mob-mustering, and I think I ought to know.

Polemarchus-Steadmanides. But will you, SOCRATES, give us your opinions of the opinion of these three-quarters of a million.

Socrates (laughing).  By Hercules! that were a task more tremendous than all his Labours.

Cephalus-Pearsonides (aside).  By Vulcan, this is his wonted irony.  He never inclines to answer a question forthrightly, but to use irony, or evasion, or what the Hibernians call “shenanigan,” rather than answer, if anyone asks him anything.

Thrasymachus-Shiptonides (aside, hastily).  Yes, yes!  But you must not tell him that, here and now!

Socrates (blandly).  Friends, as you suggest that the proceedings should be of a conversational or dialectical nature, a plan which falleth in with my views also, I will, if you please, catechise you categorically, so as to get further into the interior of the question, and of your—­ahem!—­minds.

Of this catechising, the reporter gives the following condensed summary.