“He must,” said my wife with her usual perspicacity, “have dropped it on his way out.  Let’s see who the box was really meant for.”

Picking it up I read aloud in cold firm tones my own name and address.  The box had been meant for us after all.

* * * * *

We got it in the end.  It came one morning, like the flowers in Spring, quite suddenly, and we spent a whole day telephoning to our friends to tell them we had a coin-box at last.  I also wrote a letter full of gratitude to the telephone people and got the reply that, “owing to the shortage of plant, etc.,” they regretted that for the time being they could not grant my request for a telephone.

We did not tell them that we had had one for three months; Heaven knows what would have happened.

And we are left in peace—­now that our visitors have heard that we have a coin-box.

L.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  THE PIONEERS.

SUPPOSED ORIGIN OF UNDERGROUND TACTICS.]

* * * * *

TWO “STEIN"-WAY GRANDS.

BY A PHILISTINE.

  EINSTEIN and EPSTEIN were wonderful men,
  Bringing new miracles into our ken. 
  EINSTEIN upset the Newtonian rule;
  EPSTEIN demolished the Pheidian School. 
  EINSTEIN gave fits to the Royal Society;
  EPSTEIN delighted in loud notoriety. 
  EINSTEIN made parallels meet in infinity;
  EPSTEIN remodelled the form of Divinity. 
  Nature exhausted, I hopefully sing,
  Can’t have more Steins of this sort in her sling.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mrs. Faulkner (to District Visitor).  “NICELY, THANK YOU, MISS, EXCEPT FOR A POISONED ’AND.  FOR THE REST OF ’EM, FATHER’S IN HOSPITAL, LITTLE FLORRIE’S SCALDED HERSELF AND BABY’S GOT THE WHOOPING-COUGH.  IT BE A BLESSING THAT TROUBLES DON’T COME SINGLY OR ELSE THERE’D BE NO END TO IT.”]

* * * * *

“Disputing Sergt.  Alvan C. York’s claim as the world war’s greatest hero, Sergt.  Mike Donaldson of New York has challenged the Tennessean to a debate on who is the greatest war hero.”—­New Haven Journal-Courier (U.S.A.)

Without waiting for the result of this unique contest Mr. Punch has no hesitation in saying that between them these warriors are responsible for the mightiest “blow” of the War.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  The Colonel (at the end of his vocabulary). “WHAT DID LORD FISHER SAY IN 1919?”]

* * * * *

FROM THE DANCE WORLD.

(By our Ballet Expert.)

The Daily Graphic announces that Mr. ARNOLD BENNETT has “fallen a willing victim to the latest fashionable dances,” and is having lessons in them “in the privacy of his Hanover Square home.”  A thousand entrancing possibilities are opened up by this bald announcement.  We are content to supplement it by a few authentic details.