“It is just as I feared,” I said to Araminta on returning a few moments later.  “We are not going to be infested after all.  The vermin has been sighted in No. 140B.”

“We must make the best of it,” she said, trying to speak cheerfully, “though it is hard on the children, poor dears.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the children,” I replied bitterly; “I was thinking of the expense.  If we had been living in a house instead of a flat we could at least have deducted it from the rates.”

I sat down and made out a bill as follows to the Clerk of the Borough Council, heading it:—­

  On Account of Spurious Infestment.
                                        s. d. 
  To one Mouse Institute and Aquarium 5 6
  " Cheese 0 6
  " Labour at 2/6 per hour 0 7-1/2
                                        ---------
  Total 6 7-1/2

The man replied coldly that the householder was responsible for all expenditure incurred in precautionary measures and that the Council was in no way liable for the costs resulting from an offensive that failed to materialize.  He ended with the rather rude postscript, “What kind of cheese did you use?”

This was a bit sickening.  However, by threatening to lay information against him, I have at last succeeded in inducing the occupier of 140B to take over the abattoir at a very satisfactory valuation.  It was between that and buying his mouse.

EVOE.

* * * * *

TWO NIGHTMARES.

    [Dreamed after reading in a daily paper that “any style of dress that
    lessens one’s self-confidence should be tabooed” (sic).]

  I travelled from the Sussex hills
    With confidence divine,
  Full of the conscious power that thrills
    My heart when life is mine,
  And strode to Lady Fancy Frills
    With whom I was to dine.

  Her guests had come from Clubs and Courts
    And Halls of wealthy Jews;
  As they surveyed my running shorts
    I felt my courage ooze,
  While conscious power, grown out of sorts,
    Leaked through my canvas shoes.

* * * * *

  Then I re-travelled South by West
    Inflated with a joy
  Which in the suit I called my best
    No buffet could destroy;
  I may remark I’d come full-dressed
    From lunch at the Savoy.

  But when the hills began to shout
    I coloured to the roots,
  And when the valleys cried, “Get out!”
    To the last word in suits,
  My joy, displaced by sudden doubt,
    Leaked through my spatted boots.

* * * * *

Of the mysterious Marconigrams:—­

    “They may be the effort of sentiment beings in some neighbouring planet
    to communicate with us.”—­Evening Paper.