However, my revenge did not end there.  On my way back to France I seized the opportunity of looking in at Cox’s and there took back from the Government for my own sole and absolute use some of those very pounds my son had borrowed from the bank to give it.  But I lost in the end, for my wife, whom I had taken with me to witness her and his discomfiture, had all the money off me again, in order, I gather, to put it in my son’s money-box, for him to rattle now and spend later.  The only result of my efforts therefore was to land me in a financial transaction so complicated that I cannot even follow it myself.

Yours ever,

HENRY.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Shocked Sister.  “OH, BOBBY, YOU MUSTN’T HAVE A SECOND HELPING!  YOU’LL LENGTHEN THE WAR.”

[Bobby, like a true Briton, desists.]]

* * * * *

NURSERY RHYMES OF LONDON TOWN.

(SECOND SERIES.)

XX.

MILLWALL.

  I leaned on the Mill-Wall
    Looking at the water,
  I leaned on the Mill-Wall
    And saw the Nis’s Daughter.

  I saw the Nis’s Daughter
    Playing with her ball,
  She tossed it and tossed it
    Against the Mill-Wall.

  I saw the Nis’s Goodwife
    Busy making lace
  With her silver bobbins
    In the Mill-Race.

  Then I saw the old Nis,
    His hair to his heel,
  Combing out the tangles
    On the Mill-Wheel.

  The Miller came behind me
    And gave my ear a clout—­
  “Get on with your business,
    You good-for-nothing lout!”

XXI.

CORNHILL.

  The seed of the Corn, the rustling Corn,
    The seed of the Corn is sown;
  When the seed is sown on the Cornhill
    My love will ask for his own.

  The blade of the Corn, the rustling Corn,
    The blade of the Corn is shown;
  When the blade is shown on the Cornhill
    I’ll promise my love his own.

  The ear of the Corn, the rustling Corn,
    The ear of the Corn is grown;
  When the ear is grown on the Cornhill
    My love shall have his own.

  The sheaf of the Corn, the rustling Corn,
    The sheaf of the Corn is mown;
  When the sheaf is mown on the Cornhill
    My love will leave his own.

* * * * *

ONE OF OUR OPTIMISTS.

    “WANTED, few cwt.  White Sugar, cart self; pay cash; state
    price.”—­Manchester Guardian.

* * * * *

    “M.  Trepoff accepted the leadership of the Right in the Council of
    Empire after the party had pledged itself to eschew a retrograd
    course.”—­Manchester Evening Chronicle.