“MY DEAR JAMES,—­Thank you very much for your invitation, which I am very pleased to accept.  The country, after all, is the proper place for old fogeys like myself, as it is very difficult for them to live up to the present-day bustle of a large city.  For the last six months I have been doing odd jobs at a munition factory, which, I must admit, has benefited my health in an extraordinary manner, so much so that I have entirely lost the troublesome dyspepsia I suffered from, and now, you will be glad to hear, I am able to eat like a hunter, as we used to say.  Hoping to find you all flourishing on Thursday next, about lunch-time,

“Your affectionate
UNCLE TOM.”

Instinctively I took my belt in a hole.  Then Margery silently placed this in front of me:—­

“DARLING MARGERY,—­How perfectly sweet of you!  I shall simply love it.  I am feeling especially beany as I have just finished with the dentist—­usually a hateful person—­who found out, after all, that it was not necessary to take out any of my teeth.  I adore him.  No time for more.  Heaps to tell you on Friday,

“Your loving
J.J.”

“Hullo!  Where are you off to?” I asked, as Margery made for the door.

“Off to?  Why, to put our names down on the Singleweeds’ waiting list.”

I took my belt up another hole and, whistling The Bing Boys out of sheer desperate bravado, made my gloomy way to the potato patch.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Plough Girl.  “MABEL, DO GO AND ASK THE FARMER IF WE CAN HAVE A SMALLER HORSE.  THIS ONE’S TOO TALL FOR THE SHAFTS.”]

* * * * *

A MASTER OF THE QUILL.

    “Of Swinburne’s personal characteristics Mr. Goose, as was to be
    expected, writes admirably.”—­Daily News and Leader.

* * * * *

GERMAN MEASLES.

“Francesca,” I said, “you must admit that at last I have you at a disadvantage.”

“I admit nothing of the sort.”

“Well,” I said, “have you or have you not got German measles?  It seems almost an insult to put such a question to a woman of your energy and brilliant intellectual capacity, but you force me to it.”

“Dr. Manley—­”

“Come, come, don’t fob it off on the Doctor.  He didn’t wilfully provide you with an absurd attack of this childish disease.”

“No, he didn’t; but when I was getting along quite nicely with the idea that I was suffering from a passing headache he butted in and sent me to bed as a German measler—­and now we’ve all got it.”

“Yes,” I said, “you’ve all got it, all my little chickens and their dam—­you’re the dam, remember that, Francesca—­Muriel’s got it, Nina’s got it, Alice has got it and Frederick has got it very slightly, but he insists on having all the privileges of the worst kind of invalid; and you’ve got it, Francesca, and I’m left scatheless in a position of unlimited power and no responsibility.”