Talking of THOMAS A BECKET, rather a curious story has been told to me, which I give for what it is worth.  It is stated that some time ago Mr. LLOYD GEORGE was so enraged by attacks in a certain section of the Press that he shouted suddenly, after breakfast one morning in Downing Street, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent scribe?” Whereupon four knights in his secretarial retinue drew their swords and set out immediately for Printing House Square.  Fortunately there happened to be a breakdown on the Metropolitan Railway that day, so that nothing untoward occurred.

I sometimes think that if one can imagine the eloquence of SAVONAROLA blended with the wiliness of ULYSSES and grafted on to the strength and firmness of OLIVER CROMWELL, we have the best historical parallel for Mr. LLOYD GEORGE.  It ought to be remembered that the grandfather of OLIVER CROMWELL came from Wales and that the PROTECTOR is somewhere described as “Oliver Cromwell alias Williams.”  Something of that old power of dispensing with stupid Parliamentary opinion seems to have descended to our present PRIME MINISTER.  There is one difference, however.  OLIVER CROMWELL’S famous advice to his followers was to trust in Divine Providence “and keep your powder dry.”  Mr. LLOYD GEORGE puts his powder in jam.

K.

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=Our Patient Fishermen.=

    “Mr. ——­, jun., had another salmon on the Finavon Water. 
    This is the second he has secured since the flood.”—­Scotch
    Paper.

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[Illustration:  “DON’T TURN YOUR ‘EAD AWAY, MY LORD.  WHY, DURIN’ THE WAR IT WAS ALL ’MA, MA, ‘AVE YOU ANY MATCHES?’”]

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=NEW RHYMES FOR OLD CHILDREN.=

THE WHALE.

AIR.—­"The Tarpaulin Jacket."

  The whale has a beautiful figure,
    Which he makes every effort to spoil,
  For he knows if he gets a bit bigger
    He increases the output of oil.

  That is why he insists upon swathing
    His person with layers of fat. 
  You have seen a financier bathing? 
    Well, the whale is a little like that.

  At heart he’s as mild as a pigeon
    And extremely attached to his wife,
  But getting mixed up with religion
    Has ruined the animal’s life.

  For in spite of his tact and discretion
    There is fixed in the popular mind
  A wholly mistaken impression
    That the whale is abrupt and unkind.

  And it’s simply because of the prophet
    Who got into a ship for Tarshish
  But was thrown (very properly) off it
    And swallowed alive by “a fish.”

  Now I should not, of course, have contested
    The material truth of the tale
  If the prophet himself had suggested
    That the creature at fault was a whale.