“And where exactly do you come in?” I asked.

“I intend to be the Organising Secretary of the A.S.P.,” he said.  “It will be hard work, but very meritorious.”

“Rather a nuisance won’t it be on strike days,” I inquired, “going round and visiting a few thousand pickets on foot in your black coat, with the brain waves working on top?”

“The O.S. of the A.S.P.,” answered Charles magnificently, “will not move about on foot.  He will be provided with a handsome motor-car.”

EVOE.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Constable. “NOW THEN, WHAT ARE YOU DOIN’ UP HERE?”

Burglar. “WOTCHER S’POSE I’M DOIN’?  FEEDIN’ THE PUSSY-CATS?”]

* * * * *

“A van containing L3,000 worth of woollen goods has been stolen from Broad-street, Bloomsbury.  It was left unattended by the driver, who went into a restaurant for dinner and later was found empty at Holloway.”—­Provincial Paper.

We know that kind of restaurant.

* * * * *

    “ACCOUNTING FOR WOMEN.”—­American Paper.

We had always been told there was no accounting for them.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

“CARNIVAL.”

Those who imagined that they were to be given a dramatic version of Mr. COMPTON MACKENZIE’S romance must have been shocked to find that the entertainment provided at the New Theatre was just a variation, from an Italian source, of the general idea of Pagliacci.  But it was the only palpable shock they sustained, for never did a play run a more obvious course from start to finish.  When you have for your leading character an actor-manager, who plays the part of Othello, with his wife as Desdemona (how well we know to our cost this conjugal form of nepotism), and discusses in private life the character of the Moor—­whether a man would be likely to indulge his jealousy on grounds so inadequate—­speaking with the detached air of one who is absolutely confident of his own wife’s fidelity, you don’t need much intelligence to foresee what the envy of the gods is preparing for him.  The remainder is only a matter of detail—­what particular excuse, for instance, the lady will find for a diversion, and to what lengths she will go.

[Illustration:  Simonetta (Miss HILDA BAYLEY).  “ARE YOU PLEASED WITH MY FANCY DRESS?  IT WAS TO BE A GREAT SURPRISE.”

Count Andrea (Mr. NEILSON-TERRY).  “NOTHING SURPRISES ME IN THIS PLAY.”]

In the present case her only excuse was the old one, that she was “treated like a child.”  Certainly she deserved to be, for her behaviour was of the most wilful and wayward; but she was the mother of a strapping boy, and a woman who is thought old enough to play, in the premier Italian company, the part of Desdemona (with the accent, too, on the second syllable) could hardly justify her complaint that she was regarded as a juvenile.