admiration of others in the minds of your victims. In saying this I praise your impartiality, while I hint a dislike of your ordinary methods. Not that I have any hope of causing you to desist. For to desist would be to cease to exist, and I cannot fairly expect you to commit suicide, however much I may desire it. Moreover, your subjects—for, to be candid, you are a despot—seem to like you. You minister so craftily to their self-esteem, you flatter their vanity with an adroitness so remarkable, that, after a few feeble struggles, they resign themselves, body and soul, to your thrall. Even then you proceed warily. Your first labour is to collect, with patient care, all the little elements of dissatisfaction that are latent in every nature, and to blend them with the petty disappointments to which even the best of us are liable. The material thus obtained you temper with intentions that seem to be good, and eventually you forge out of it a weapon of marvellous point and sharpness, with which you mercilessly goad your victims along the path that leads to ridicule and disaster.

Let me take an instance which I am sure you will remember. When I first met little DABCHICK, I thought I had never seen a happier mortal. He was clever, good-natured, and sprightly. He sold tea somewhere in Mincing Lane, and on the proceeds of his sales he managed to support a wife and two pleasant children in reasonable comfort at Balham. Mrs. DABCHICK could not be accused by her best friends of over-refinement, but everybody agreed that she was just the homely, comfortable, housewifely person who would always make DABCHICK happy, and be a good and careful mother to his children. Often in the old days when I came down to Balham and took pot-luck with DABCHICK, while Mrs. DABCHICK beamed serenity and middle-class satisfaction upon me from the other end of the table, and the juvenile JOHNNY DABCHICK recited in a piping treble one of Mr. GEORGE R. SIMS's most moving pieces for our entertainment, often, I say, have I envied the simple happiness of that family, and gone back to my bachelor chambers with an increased sense of dissatisfaction. Why, I thought to myself, had fate denied to me the peaceful domesticity of the DABCHICKS? I was as good a man as DABCHICK, probably, if the truth were known, a better than he. Yet there he was with a good wife, an agreeable family, and a comfortable income to compensate him for his extravagance with the letter h, while I had to toil and moil in solitary gloom.

Now, however, all is changed. In an evil moment for himself, DABCHICK speculated largely and successfully in the Gold Trust of Guatemala. In a very short time his income was multiplied by ten. The usual results followed. The happy home in Balham was given up. "People about here," said DABCHICK, "are such poor snobs"—and a more ornate mansion in South Kensington was taken in its stead. The old friends and the old habits were dropped. JOHNNY DABCHICK was sent to Eton with an immoderate allowance of pocket-money, and was promptly christened "PEKOE" by his schoolfellows. Mrs. DABCHICK rides in a huge landau with blue wheels, and leaves cards on the fringes of the aristocracy. DABCHICK himself aspires to Parliament, and never keeps the same circle of friends for more than about six months. He knows one shady Viscount to whom rumour asserts that he has lent immense sums of Guatemalan money, and the approach of a Marquis makes him palpitate with emotion. But he is a profoundly miserable man. Of that I am assured. It amuses me when I meet him in pompous society to address him lightly as "DAB," and remind him of the dear old Balham days, and the huge amount of bird's-eye we used to smoke together. For his motto now is, "Delenda est Balhamia"—I speak of course figuratively—and half-crown havannahs have usurped the place of the honest briar. I know the poor wretch is making up his mind to cut me, but I must bear it as best I may.

Now, my dear Sir or Madam, for this melancholy deterioration in the DABCHICKS you are entirely responsible. I am saddened as I contemplate it, and I appeal to you. Scarify Dukes and Duchesses, make vain and useless social prigs as miserable as you like, but leave the DABCHICKS of this world alone. They are simple folk, and really I cannot think that the game is worth the candle.

Believe me to be, your obedient servant,

DIOGENES ROBINSON.

BROADLY SPEAKING.

Advised by friend to try Norfolk Broads for holiday. Oulton Broad, Wroxham Broad, Fritton Decoy (curious name!), Yare, Waveney, and no end of other rivers. Yachting, shooting, fishing, pretty scenery, divine air, he says. Have come down to Yarmouth for a start.

Up the Bure in a yacht, and into river Thurne. All right so far. Fish scarce. My pilot says, "wait till I get to Hickling Broad. Full of bream and roach." I agree to wait.

In Hickling Broad. Surprised to find notice-boards up all round saying, "sailing" is prohibited in the Broad, also fishing and shooting! "What's the meaning of this?" I ask pilot. He says, "it's all the doings of the Lord of the Manor." Wants to keep the Broad free from tourists. He certainly does it "as to the Manor born." Quite a village autocrat. Shall I be the "Village HAMPDEN?" I will.

Fishing. Several men on bank shouting at me. One comes off in a boat and serves me with a summons. This might almost be called a Broad hint to go away! But I don't go. I stop and fish. Another man comes off in boat and threatens me with action "on behalf of riparian owners." Tell him "ripe-pear-ian season isn't till Autumn, and I shall wait here till then." He doesn't see the joke—perhaps too broad for him.

Other yachtsmen, we hear, have been stopped, and threatened. Yachtsmen up in arms generally. Savage artists wander along banks, denouncing Lord of Manor of Hickling. Say they have "right of way" along banks (sounds as if they were Railway Guards). Hear that Lord of Manor is going to put a gunboat on Broad, also torpedoes. Hear, also, that Wroxham Broad—one of the biggest—is to be closed in same way.

Disgusted at such inhospitality. Back to Yarmouth. Give up yacht, and decide to go to Switzerland instead. Find Yarmouth yacht-owners furious with Hickling's Lord of Bad Manners. Say "closing the Broads will ruin them." Very likely, but it'll help the foreign hotel-keeper. Glad to see they've started a "Norfolk Broads Protection Society," subscriptions to be sent to Lloyd's Bank. "I know a Bank"—and all lovers of natural scenery and popular rights ought to know it too, and help in giving the Hickling obstructionist a "heckling," when he takes the matter (also the Manor) into Court.

INANITIES OF THE DRAWING-ROOM.

"SEEN THE ENFANT PRODIGUE, MR. SOFTEY?"

"NO; WAITING TILL THEY DO IT IN ENGLISH!"

A TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

(A Scene of To-day, in a Shakspearian Setting.)

Mr. Punch. "How now, my hearts! Did you never see the picture of 'We Three?'"

Emperor. Marry, forfend, Mr. Punch! Well quoted indeed, and, pertinently, from the Swan! "A mellifluous, voice, as I am a true Knight!" But talk not of things triune too openly, lest quidnuncs overhear, and L-B-CH-RE devise thereanent fresh heckling interrogations for the Treasury Bench.

Mr. Punch. Nay, Kaiser; 'tis not the actual Triple, but the conceivable Quadruple, that perturbs the importunates. We Three form an informal but fast-knit trinity, that can offend none but churls, and affright none but dullards. Peace, Goodfellowship, Wit! By my bauble, a triad that PYTHAGORAS himself might have favoured! Talking of