“What a shame!” murmured MacFadden sympathetically.

“Ay, if they had turned up they should hae had their lunch, and paid for it too,” said the good lady grimly.  “Twa days they should hae paid for.  But if ye like ye can eat their lunch for them; it’s cauld but guid.”

So we ate heartily, paid reasonably and went away on good terms with ourselves and the lady.

Walking up the steep hill from the hotel I was just behind Willoughby and Sylvia.  He was pushing the two bicycles and explaining something elaborately.

“Awfully sorry about that silly woman, Sylvia,” he said, “but it’s only their rotten way of talking English.  You see, when she says, ‘Will you be Mrs. Willoughby?’ she really means, ‘Are you?’ It’s not the same as when an Englishman says it.  If I said, ’Will you be Mrs. Willoughby?’ that would be different; it would mean—­”

“Yes,” interrupted Sylvia rather breathlessly, “that, Tommy dear, would be plain English, to which I could give a plain answer.  I should say—­”

We had reached the brow of the hill.  I mounted my bicycle and hurried on.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Mistress. “YOU SEEM TO HAVE BEEN IN A GOOD MANY SITUATIONS.  HOW MANY MISTRESSES HAVE YOU HAD, ALL TOLD?”

Maid. “FIFTEEN, ALL TOLD—­AND ALL TOLD WHAT I THOUGHT OF ’EM.”]

* * * * *

    “1,000 EGGS IN ONE WHISKER.”

    Daily Paper.

A much worse case than that of LEAR’S old man with a beard, who said it was just as he feared.

* * * * *

“For all we know, Helen of Troy’s best friends might have said, ’Helen has style and knows how to make the most of her good points; but, honest, now, do you think she should have got the apple?’”

    Evening Paper.

Certainly not.  That’s why Paris gave it to Aphrodite.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  First Ancient (with morbid fear of growing deaf, breaking long silence). “THERE—­IT’S COME AT LAST!  YOU’VE BEEN TALKING ALL THIS TIME AND I AIN’T HEARD A SINGLE WORD.”

Second Ancient. “BAIN’T BIN TALKIN’—­BIN CHEWIN’.”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Really I think that Rhoda Drake (MURRAY) must be the most preposterously startling story that I have read for this age.  It makes you feel as if you had had a squib exploded under your chair at a temperance meeting.  After beginning placidly about persons who live in South Kensington (and are so dull that the author has to fill up with minute descriptions of their drawing-rooms), somewhere towards three-quarters through its decorous course it plunges