Beggar-man (miraculously recovering his sight). Acrobat!  Put the whip to him, ye lazy varmint!  Acrobat!  Och, wirra, wirra!

Dealer. Beau Brocade has him cot.  He is on his quarther.  He is on his shoulder.  They are neck and neck.  He has him bet.  Huroosh!

Farmer. What are you hurooshin’ for—­you with five poun’ on Acrobat?

Dealer (crestfallen). Och, dang it, I was forgettin’.

Girl in Brown (dancing and clapping her hands). Hurray!  Hurray!  Hurray!

Beggar-man. ***!!! ***!!!

[Local brass band, throned in a dilapidated waggonette, explodes into the opening strains of “Garryowen."

PATLANDER.

* * * * *

    “The question which arises in the mind of
    the writer is this:—­’Is Salicylic Aldehyde
    “C6H4           OH
    the cause of the trouble?’”—­The Fruit-Grower.

It must be a dreadful thing to have a mind like that.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  MANNERS AND MODES.

THEN AND NOW.

[From an Early-Victorian pocket “Etiquette for Gentlemen."—­“During the morning hours a gentleman visitor who neither shoots, reads, writes letters nor does anything but idle about the house and chat with the ladies is an intolerable nuisance.  Sooner than become the latter he had better retire to the billiard-room and practise cannons by himself."]]

* * * * *

TELEPHONE TACTICS.

It is now some months since the great autumn offensive was conducted with the idea of biting off an awkward salient in my circumstances—­in brief, of obtaining the necessary telephone to enable me to commence an ordered existence.  For many, many days my voice had been unheard crying in the wilderness that I was a poor demobilised soldier, that I had once had a telephone and had given it up at my country’s call, and please couldn’t they give me back even my old, old telephone again?  I have already told how in response to these very human appeals I at length got only a request for the balance due for calls for 1914.  My old friend Time, however, worked his proverbial wonders and one day a telephone came—­phit! like that.

Directly it had come I suspected a trap somewhere.  Nor were my friends behindhand in telling me of the horrors of gigantic and inexorable bills from which there was no appeal.  They said I must have a coin-box.  Excellent idea!  I would have a coin-box.

So the great Spring offensive began.  In early February I opened a strong barrage upon the main headquarters (how lovingly these ancient military metaphors come back to one!) and kept up a little light harassing fire upon the District Agent.  The enemy replied with rigid uniformity upon printed forms—­a mean advantage, for I have to type mine myself.  But matters progressed.  At the end of the first fortnight I had been advised that the work of installing my coin-box had been entrusted to no fewer than three groups of engineers, “to whom you should refer in all cases.”