“But after all,” as M’sieur remarked, placing his hand on his heart, whence it insensibly wandered to a point lower down, “it is some satisfaction to know that the feelings of our excellent wives remain unlacerated.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  MANNERS AND MODES.

THE NEW POOR MAKE GOOD.]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.

HE SWORE TO BECOME A CINEMA-ACTOR.

AND HE DID.]

* * * * *

SHATTERED ROMANCES.

DEAR MR. PUNCH,—­I read in a weekly paper that “plans are well in hand for putting up other Government Department buildings at Acton, which looks to have a future of its own, that of a sort of suburban Whitehall.”

Have you considered what this new departure means for those who, like myself, are the writers of political romance?  To all intents we have lost the Ball-platz; we have lost the Wilhelmstrasse, and now here is Whitehall going out into the suburbs....  No doubt our leading Ministers, attracted by the more salubrious air, will establish themselves in the environs of the Metropolis, leaving behind them only the lower class of civil servant.  Have you considered the devastating effect of this change?

Think what we used to give our readers:  “A heavy mist lay over Whitehall.  High above the seething traffic the busy wires hummed with the fate of Empires.”  How, I ask you, will it look when they read:  “The busy wires above Lewisham High Street hummed with the fate of Empires”?

Or think of the thrill that was conveyed by this (it comes in three of my most recent books):  “He looked, with a little catch in the throat, and read the number, ’Ten’—­No. 10, Downing Street, where the finger of fate writes its decrees while a trembling continent waits, where empires are made and unmade—­the hub of the universe....”  Doesn’t that make even your heart beat faster?  But who will thrill at this:  “He waited for a moment before the bijou semi-detached villa (bath h. and c.), known as Bella Vista, in Rule Britannia Road, Willesden Junction; then with a swift glance up and down he stealthily approached.  When the neat maid opened the door, ’Is the Prime Minister in?’ he asked?” (He did not hiss.  Who could hiss in that atmosphere?)

Or take this from my last book (shall I ever write its like again?):  “Men, bent with the weight of secrets which, if known, would send a shiver through the Chancelleries of Europe, could be seen hurrying across the Mall in the pale light and going towards the great building in which England’s foreign policy is shaped and formulated.”  But the Foreign Office at Swiss Cottage, or Wandsworth—­I could not write of it.  And there will be the India Office at Tooting, or Ponder’s End, or at—­But how can your “dusky Sphinx-like faces, wrapt in the mystery of the East, be seen passing the purlieus of”—­the Ilford Cinema?