* * *

“Keep smiling and you will never need a doctor,” advises a writer in an illustrated daily.  A friend of ours who put it to the test now writes to us from a well-known county asylum advising us to choose the doctor.

* * *

According to a morning paper, Micky, the oldest ape in the Zoo, now wears a mournful expression and seems to be tired of life.  It is thought that he may have recently overhead the remark made by a thoughtless visitor that he was growing more like a Bolshevik every day.

* * *

A certain lamp-post in Maida Vale has been knocked down twice by the same bus.  If the bus knocks it down once more the lamp becomes its own property.

* * *

The amazing report that one of the first six to finish in the London to Brighton walk was once a telegraph-boy is now denied.

* * *

There is a man living in the Edgware Road, it is stated, who has never been on an omnibus.  He has often seen them whizzing by, he declares, but has always resisted the temptation to take the fatal plunge.

* * *

There will be no Naval manoeuvres this year, it is announced.  How under these conditions Mr. Pollen can continue to teach the Navy its business is a very grave question.

* * *

At a St. Dunstan’s auction at Thornton Heath autographs of Mr. George Robey and the Premier were sold at ten shillings each.  Mr. Robey, it appears, generously insisted on treating the matter as a joke.

* * *

A Manchester scientist claims to have discovered a means of making vegetable alcohol undrinkable without impairing its usefulness.  It looks as if the secret of Government ale must have leaked out at last.

* * *

We are in a position to deny a report which was being spread in connection with a certain Model Village scheme, to the effect that the model bricklayer had refused to perform unless he was provided with a model public-house, while the model public-house could not be provided until the model bricklayer started work.

* * *

Bonnet strings, says a fashion paper, will be worn by debutantes this summer.  Apron strings, we gather, will continue to be unfashionable with our flappers.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  British Museum Official. “No, you can’t get into the mummy Gallery.  The government officials are still there.”

Rustic. “What!  Ain’t they sorted ’Em out yet?”]

* * * * *

On the Italian Riviera.

England to her France.

This is a joyous trysting-place, my love,
With no inconstant climate to distract us;
Pure azure is the sky that laughs above
These admirable bowers of prickly cactus,
Where we may nestle, conjugating amo
(Dear old San Remo!).