“What’s that thing over the door?” I said.

“That I take to be a sun-dial,” said Smithson with his accustomed reserve of strength.

“What a delightful stile,” I said. (You always have stiles on sun-dials.  I knew that).

“Qua stile it is perfect.  What do you make of the inscription?”

I went at it bald-headed. “Percunt et imputantur,” I said.

“You may be right, of course,” replied Smithson, “though it certainly begins with an A.”

“True,” I corrected. “Anno Domini.”

“Conceivably—­but the second letter is a U.”

I left Smithson painfully to reconstruct A-U-G-U-S-T from among the ivy.  He had got to the M of a long date when a burst of sun cast a crisp shadow across the dial.

“I don’t think much of GEORGE STEPHENSON after all,” I said.  “His beastly clock doesn’t know the right time.”

Smithson snorted.  Here was a challenge to the omniscient.

“That’s all right,” he said, recovering himself in a moment “All properly constructed dials have a compensating table; we shall find one no doubt behind the ivy; there!  I see it, to the left—­a compensating table by which you have to correct the actual record of the shadow.  For example, we are now in Lat. 55 N. The month is April.  At Greenwich—­”

But I wasn’t listening.  A bright truth had flashed into my mind, and I couldn’t hold myself back any longer.  “It’s just about an hour slow,” I said.  “You don’t think that Daylight Saving has anything to do with it, do you?”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Busdriver.—­“ALL RIGHT—­ALL RIGHT!  I SEE YER, YER NEEDN’T KEEP ON SURRENDERING.”]

* * * * *

“About twenty-four hours later one of the ship’s officers saw something bobbing on the water a few hundred years dead ahead.”—­New York Evening Post.

America evidently foresees a long war.

* * * * *

THE STRIFE OF TONGUES.

(Lines suggested by the recent demise of the inventor of Esperanto.)

  As a patriotic Briton
  I am naturally smitten
      With disgust
  When some universal lingo
  By a zealous anti-Jingo
      Is discussed.

  Some there are who hold that Spanish
  In the end is bound to banish
      Other tongues;
  Some again regard Slavonic
  As a stimulating tonic
      For the lungs.

  I would sooner bank on Tuscan,
  Ay, or even on Etruscan,
      Than on Erse;
  But fanatical campaigners,
  Gaelic Leaguers and Sinn Feiners
      Find it terse.

  Some are moved to have a shy at
  Persian, thanks to the Rubaiyat,
      And its ease;
  But it’s quite another matter
  If you’re anxious for to chatter
      In Chinese.

  To instruct a brainy brat in
  Canine or colloquial Latin
      May be wise;
  But it’s not an education
  As a fruitful speculation
      I’d advise.