* * * * *

=Stitches in Time.=

    “The breeches on the line between Sini and Jhursagudha have now
    been repaired.”—­Civil and Military Gazette.

* * * * *

“The King has given Mr. William Armstrong, Director of Criminal Intelligence of the Shanghai Municipal Police, authority to wear the Insignia of the Fourth Class of the Order of the Excellent Crop, conferred on him by the President of the Republic of China, in recognition of valuable services.”—­Times.

We understand that extreme shortness of hair is not the hall-mark of the Chinese criminal world.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  UNDER A CLOUD (WITH A GOLDEN LINING).

COMRADE LANSBURY.  “THANKS TO MY FAITHFUL BROLSKI NOT A DROP HAS
TOUCHED ME.”

[Loud crows from “Daily Herald” bird.]]

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Horrified Sister (to small artist).  “MABEL, YOU’RE SURELY NOT SUCKING YOUR BRUSH WHEN YOU’RE PAINTING TOADSTOOLS?”]

* * * * *

KINGS AND QUEENS.

There are thirty-six of them in all, ranging from WILLIAM I., who is “severe,” to VICTORIA, who is just “good.”  I first made their acquaintance in childhood, when my grandmother gave them me with the laudable object of teaching me history.  Each is a little wooden block signifying a monarch.  On one side there is a portrait showing the face, collar and upper portion of torso of the monarch in question; on the other side there is written a single word summing up his whole character.

By means of these royal blocks I was brought up to a sound historical sense based on religion and morality.  At the age of seven I could and did boast that I knew the innermost souls of all the monarchs of England.  I could say their dates by heart, often doing so during sermon time on Sundays, with a grace and ease that only lifelong acquaintance with royalty could have bred.  I was even able to triumph through that tricky period between the death of EDWARD III. and the accession of ELIZABETH.  I wonder if the late Lord ACTON was as learned at that age:  I am sure he could not say his dates backwards.  I could.

It has always surprised those who have endeavoured to teach me history that my youthful brain should be so strongly grounded in the historical tradition of over half a century ago.  Yet all the historians of modern England could not shake me in my faith.  To me QUEEN VICTORIA was no “panting little German widow,” as our latest searcher after truth has affirmed, but the august lady who listened entranced to the beautiful poems of Lord TENNYSON and invented electricity and the tricycle.  In consequence I was considered a counter-revolutionary, if not bourgeois.  My essays were deemed dangerously reactionary.  At Oxford I once found my tutor burning one.  This shows the value the authorities attach to my work.  It is too dangerous to live; it is burnt.