wireless waiter, than partake of the most extravagant repasts in those sumptuous halls.

George. I must just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have their own way in everything?

Mrs. M. I am afraid, my dear George, that you are animated by a somewhat reactionary bias in favour of feudalism, which in your own best interests you would do well to curb. It is enough to say that some of the peers supported the House of Commons, and the majority were too timid to make any stand against the numbers and violence of the other House. Nowadays, thanks to the wide diffusion of peerages and the fact that they are conferred far more freely on persons of advanced political views, this lack of independence has largely been eliminated.

Richard. I am sure we must all thank you for the trouble you took to explain about Free Trade and Protection; but if you are not too tired will you kindly tell us something about the learned and clever men who lived at this time?

Mrs. M. You know, my dear boy, that I am always happy to impart information, and am pleased to have such attentive listeners. The authoress of your favourite poems, Mary, lived in this reign. I mean Mrs. ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. The Rev. H.G. WELLS, the famous theologian who abolished the Latin and Greek grammars; the Baroness Corkscrew—to call her by the name under which she was ultimately elevated to the peerage—who wrote so many beautiful historical romances that she quite superseded Sir WALTER SCOTT; Sir JOHN OXENHAM, one of England's greatest poets; and Lord HALL-CAINE, author of Isle of Man Power, were commanding figures in this period.

Richard. Oh, Mamma, did not Lord HALL-CAINE discover the North Pole?

Mrs. M. Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer, Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir OLIVER LODGE.

Richard. Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure that you have left out a great many things. You have never told us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park.

George. And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other great Leaders of English Society.

Mrs. M. True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the Dictionary of National Biography, for here is the tea, and I must leave off.

ALLIRAP ASRAS.

It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite of The Daily Mail) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising conditions—one being when a butler (an old and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.

It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play Othello, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.

But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?

But what I want to know is—who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?