I therefore withdrew quietly from the conversation and scattered the little bits on the floor as I did so.  But I did not leave the office.  Instead, I went to the side desk again and wrote another telegram, which, with the necessary money (an awful lot), I pushed through the grating, where the girls were still talking.  My second telegram had no reference to horses—­I had done with gambling for the day—­but ran thus:—­

    Postmaster-General, London.

    Suggest you remind telegraph clerk on duty at this hour at this
    post-office that she perhaps talks a shade too much about Herne
    Bay and gives public too little consideration.

The girl, having ceased her chatter, took the telegram and began feverishly to count the words.  Then her tapping pencil slowed down and her brows contracted; she was assimilating their meaning.  Then, with a blush, and a very becoming one, she looked at me with an expression of distress and said, “Do you really want this to go?”

“No,” I said, withdrawing the money.

“I’m sorry I was not more attentive,” she said.

“That’s all right,” I replied.  “Tear it up.”

And I came away, feeling, with a certain glow of satisfaction not unmixed with self-righteousness, that I had done something to raise the post-office standard and to ensure better attention.  But the joke is that, if I had myself received better attention, I should have lost thirty pounds, for St. Vitus was unplaced.  This story must therefore remain without a moral.

E.V.L.

* * * * *

=Notice in a Shop Window.=

    “Hats made to order, or revenerated.”

Ah! that’s what’s wanted so badly to-day for the headgear of the
Higher Clergy.

* * * * *

“V.C.W.  Jupp, the Sussex amateur, has been invited to become a member of the M.C.C. team, which leaves for Australia on Saturday.  A fine all-round cricketer, Jupp is a useful man to any team, but as he usually fields cover-point his inclusion would not necessarily improve the side in its weakest point—­viz., the lack of oilfields.”—­Daily Paper.

Surely the fewer the better, if that’s where the butter-fingers come from.

* * * * *

BETWEEN TWO STOOLS.

[Dedicated to those high-minded and dispassionate leader-writers who, after prefacing their remarks with the declaration that “we hold no brief for—­” extreme views of all sorts, proceed to show that the conduct of the extremist is invariably explained, if not justified, by the iniquities of the Coalition Government.]

  I hold no brief for LENIN
    Or TROTSKY or their breed;
  Their way of doing men in
    Is foreign to my creed;
  But, since to me LLOYD GEORGE is
    A source of deeper dread,
  For Bolshevistic orgies
    A great deal may be said.