We shall do our best to oblige.  “Live and let live” is our motto.

* * * * *

CHILDREN’S TALES FOR GROWN-UPS.

II.

BELLING THE CAT.

“The only question is,” said the old mouse, “who is to bell the cat?”

“An absurd question,” said the strategist.

“It has finished the story for hundreds of years,” said the old mouse crossly.

The strategist turned his back on the old mouse.  “What is needed,” he said, “is a plan.  We must make the cat appear ridiculous, and the people of the house will see it is no use as a mouser.  Then they will turn it into a pet cat and bell it themselves.”

“Shall we send a deputation?” growled the old mouse.

“We must go out and hunt for food in the daytime,” said the strategist.

“We shall all be killed,” cried the mice, shivering with terror.

“No more than are killed now,” said the strategist.  “Less, in fact, because cats do not see so well in the daytime.”

And it turned out as the strategist predicted.  Mice ran about boldly everywhere, and though the cat caught some of them the people of the house were dissatisfied.  “We might as well drown that cat at once and get a real mouser,” said the master.

“Oh, don’t drown poor pussy,” said the little girl.  “Do let me keep her.”

“Well, mind you put a bell round her neck, then,” laughed the master of the house, “so that she may know that she’s not a real mouser.”

That night there was joy unheard of among the mice.  They scampered about happily, and ran away chuckling when pussy came tinkling along.  The strategist was crowned king.

Next day the real mouser arrived.  His first victim was the strategist.

* * * * *

Illumination.

“In my youth I had learnt, by sedulously imitating the pantaloons in the harlequinades, to drop flat on my face instinctively, and to produce the illusion of being picked up neatly by the slack of my trousers and set on my feet again.”—­Mr. Bernard Shaw in “The Daily Chronicle."

This revelation of youthful self-culture helps one to understand so much that Mr. SHAW does to-day.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE SCARECROW.]

* * * * *

A SONG OF FOOD-SAVING.

    [Being a faithful effort to versify the article written by Dr. E.I. 
    SPRIGGS, at the request of the FOOD CONTROLLER, on the food
    requirements of people of different ages and build.]

  Good people, who long for a lead
    On the paramount crux of the time,
  I pray you give diligent heed
    To the lessons I weave into rhyme;
  And first, let us note, one and all—­
    Whether living in castles or “digs”—­
  “Large people need more than the small,”
    For that’s the first maxim of SPRIGGS.