Yesterday Miss Ivy Peckaby was the happy recipient of a topaz at the hands of a representative of The Daily Trail.  The stone, which is of magnificent colour and quality, is the free gift of The Daily Trail. The Daily Trail is also defraying the entire cost of setting the gem in Miss Peckaby’s brooch.  Photo on back page of Miss Peckaby acknowledging The Daily Trail’s free gift of a topaz.  Inset:  The topaz.)

I have heard nothing further from Micklebrown.

* * * * *

RARA AVIS.

  Many birds there be that bards delight in;
    I to one my tribute verse would bring;
  Patience, reader! no, it’s not the nightin-
      gale I’m going to sing.

  Sweet to lie at ease and for a while hark
    To a “spirit that was never bird;”
  Still I don’t propose to sing the skylark,
      As perhaps inferred.

  I’m content to leave it to a fitter
    Tongue than mine to hymn the “moan of doves,”
  Or the swallow, apt to “cheep and twitter
      Twenty million loves.”

  I’m intrigued by no precocious rook, who
    Haunts the high hall garden calling “Maud;”
  Mine’s no “blithe newcomer” like the cuckoo
      Wordsworth used to laud.

  Never could the blackbird or the throstle
    (From the poet each has had his due)
  Win from me such perfectly colossal
      Gratitude as you.

  You, I mean, accommodating partridge,
    By some lucky chance (the only one,
  Spite of much expenditure of cartridge)
      Fallen to my gun.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  OUT OF THE FRYING PAN.

WAR VETERAN.  “THEY TOLD ME I WAS FIGHTING FOR DEAR LIFE, BUT I NEVER DREAMT
IT WAS GOING TO BE AS DEAR AS ALL THIS.”]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Father. “OH, YES, I USED TO PLAY QUITE A LOT OF CRICKET.  I ONCE MADE FORTY-SEVEN.”

Son. “WHAT—­WITH A HARD BALL, FATHER?”]

* * * * *

THE HUMAN CITY AND SUBURBAN.

The idea and the name for it were the invention of the ingenious Piggott.  I am his first initiate, and with the zeal of the neophyte I am endeavouring to make his discovery more widely known.  The game, which is healthy and invigorating, can be carried on in any of the remoter suburbs, where the train-service is not too frequent.  All that is required is a fairly long and fairly straight piece of road, terminating in a railway-station, and a sufficiency of City men of suitable age and rotundity.

The scheme is based on the Herd instinct—­on the tendency of most creatures to follow their leader.  For example, if you are walking down to your early train, with plenty of time to spare as you suppose, and you observe the man in front of you looking at his watch and suddenly quickening his steps, first to a smart walk, then to a brisk jog-trot, it is not in human nature, however you may trust your own watch, not to follow suit.  This is precisely what Piggott led me to do one morning about six weeks back.