For a month I dwelt in this fool’s paradise.  Then one evening my wife gently broke the news.

“I have something serious to tell you.  Cook has given notice.”

“Who is dead now?” I asked.

“No one.  She is engaged to be married.”

“Married?”

“Yes, to the young undertaker.”

“What young undertaker?”

“The one who buried Dundee.”

It was too true.  At supper, after the inhumation, a mutual esteem had sprung up that rapidly ripened into love.  The enterprising young journeyman, so enamoured of his calling that he consented to inter dumb creatures in his leisure time, had evidently discerned in Cook, with her wealth of funeral lore, a helpmeet worthy of himself; while Cook on her side, conquered by his diligence and discretion, considered she had secured a respectable settlement for life, with the prospect of obsequies of the highest class for herself.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Cheery Member (to Club pessimist).  “HULLO, OLD CHAP!  HAVING A BAD CROSSING?”]

* * * * *

CLERICAL EDUCATION.

[The Rev. KENNEDY BELL, in The Daily Sketch, deplores the dreariness of parish magazines and suggests, with a view to brighten their contents, that clergymen should serve an apprenticeship on the daily Press.]

  The Reverend Mr. KENNEDY BELL
  Is wholly unable to say all’s well
  With the state of our parish magazines,
  And is moved to indicate the means
  Of making their pages bright and snappy
  And bored subscribers cheerful and happy. 
  Now the most original of his hints
  For galvanizing these dreary prints
  Is this:  That every parson, before
  He aspires to be parish editor,
  Should join the staff of a leading daily
  And learn to write genially and gaily. 
  It may be a counsel of sheer perfection,
  And yet, perhaps, on further reflection,
  We may admit that something is gained
  By the plan of having clergymen trained
  In the very heart of the Street of Ink
  To paint their parish magazines pink. 
  So generous laymen may haply decide
  That it may be worth their while to provide
  Each KENNEDY BELL with stepping-stones
  To rise to the height of a KENNEDY JONES. 
  But others, a small and dwindling crew,
  Possibly fit, but certainly few,
  And cursed with a most pronounced capacity
  For suffering from inept vivacity,
  Would gladly be reckoned as unenlightened
  Could they keep one class of journal un-"brightened.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “MY DEAR, YOU ARE NOT DANCING.”

“NO—­MOST PROVOKING.  I MISLAID MY PARTNER AT PADDINGTON, AND HE HASN’T THE FAINTEST IDEA WHERE THE DANCE IS.”]

* * * * *

THE PASSING OF THE LITTER.