The third time we heard of them we were satisfied; the fourth time we heard of them we were indifferent; the fifth time bored, the sixth time irritated, the seventh time infuriated, and the eighth time we said to our informant, “Now look you here.  We appreciate the excitement of your mysterious presence and the soothing effects of your hushed voice, and as long as you care to go on revealing your secrets we will listen.  You may speak of finance and you may even touch upon British bank-notes forged by the Soviets; you may go so far as to divulge some new forms of script involved, getting as near as even, say, Japanese Debentures; but if you so much as mention China or its Bonds to us again we will wrap you up in a parcel and post you to Moscow with a personal note of warning to LENIN as to your inner knowledge and the dangerous publicity you are giving it.”

For ourselves we wrote many a learned treatise on the subject and sent many a thousand memos home to those authorities near to whose hearts the welfare of those Bonds should be.  And after many months of this correspondence someone in the what-d’you-call-it office suddenly sat up and took notice and wrote to us as follows:  “His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Thingummy has the honour to inform you that rumours have reached his ears concerning the existence of certain bonds, alleged to be Chinese, in the hands of Bolshevist agitators coming or intending to come to this country.  You are requested to ascertain and report what, if anything, is known of these Chinese Bonds.”

I could have made a story for you of the uses to which the Bonds were put in other countries and newspapers as well as your own.  But that painfully honest journal, The Daily Herald, has anticipated me.  And anything more you want to know about the conspiracies or the conspirators you may now, as I judge from reading your Press, experience for yourself.  So upon that these letters may end.  I would like to have concluded by a protestation that, in making these frank statements as to the working of, and against, the Conspirators, I personally draw no pecuniary benefit of any sort, not a sovereign, not a bob, not a half-penny stamp.  It is perhaps better, however, to anticipate discovery by owning up to the fact that my frankness is being paid for at so many pence per line.

  Yours ever, HENRY.

(Concluded.)

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Nervous Party.  “ARE YOU SURE THAT LOBSTER’S ALL RIGHT?”

Fishmonger (on his dignity).  “QUITE RIGHT, SIR.  IF IT ISN’T WE SHALL BE HERE TO-MORROW.”

Nervous Party.  “YES—­BUT SHALL I BE HERE TO-MORROW?”]

* * * * *

EPITAPH FOR A PROFESSOR OF TANGO: 

“Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit.”

* * * * *

THE CAGE.