china-ornament and say, “I never knew cows in this part of the country were blue and green.”  Then after you’ve exhausted the cow, milked her dry, so to speak, you can take a turn at the engravings, and make a sly hit at the taste in art generated by modern education.  Hereupon, someone is dead certain to chime in with the veteran grumble about farmers who educate their children above their station by allowing their daughters to learn to play the piano, and their sons to acquire the rudiments of Latin:  “Give you my word of honour, the farmers’ daughters about my uncle’s place, get their dresses made by my aunt’s dressmaker, and thump out old WAGNER all day long.”  This horrible picture of rural depravity will cause an animated discussion.  When it is over, you can say, “This is the very best Irish-stew I’ve ever tasted.  I must get your cook to give me the receipt.”

“Ah, my boy,” says CHALMERS, “you’ll find there’s nothing like a stew out shooting.”

“Of course,” you say, “nothing can beat it, if you’ve got a nice room to eat it in, and aren’t pressed for time; but, if you’ve got no end of ground to cover, and not much time to do it in, I can always manage to do myself on a scrap of anything handy.  Thanks, I don’t mind if I do have a chunk of cake, and a whitewash of sherry.”

Thus you have fetched a compass—­I fancy the phrase is correct—­and have wiped out the memory of your indiscretion.  Of course the thing may happen the other way round.  You may have expressed a preference for solid lunches, only to find yourself set down on a tuft of grass, with a beef sandwich and a digestive biscuit.  In that case you can begin by declaring your delight in an open-air meal, go on to admire the scenery, and end by expressing a certain amount of judicious contempt for the Sybarite who cannot tear himself away from effeminate luxuries, and the trick’s done.

But this subject is so great, and has so many varieties, that we must recur to it in our next.

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[Illustration:  IN THE RUE DE LA PAIX.

Hairdresser.  “SAY THEN, SARE ZAT YOU ARE RASE—­SHAVE,—­IS IT THAT I SHALL CUT YOU OFF YOUR ’AIR?”

Mr. Brown (an old-fashioned Englishman, on his first Visit to Paris—­startled).  “HEY!  WHAT!  CUT MY HAIR OFF!  NONG, MOSSOO—­COMPRENNY?—­NONG!  DO YOU THINK I WANT TO LOOK LIKE ONE OF YOUR FRENCH POODLES?”]

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TO OUR GUERNSEY CORRESPONDENTS.

MR. PUNCH is sorry to find that his fancy sketch of a Guernsey Car drive has been taken so seriously in some quarters as to give pain and offence which were very far from being intended.  He begs to assure the honourable fraternity of Car-proprietors and drivers in the island, that he did not mean to suggest for a moment that there was the slightest real danger to the public who patronise those highly popular and excellently-conducted vehicles, or that any actual driver was either intemperate or incompetent; and that, should such an impression have been unfortunately produced—­which he hopes is impossible—­no one would regret so unjust an aspersion more sincerely than Mr. Punch himself.