ii.

59A. Information, General.—If all the Treasury Notes circulated in the United Kingdom since 1914 were placed end to end they might reach from Bristol to Yokohama and back, but they would not constitute a sufficient inducement to a London taxi-driver.

60. ... and this practice must cease forthwith.

60A. Query, Our Daily.—What is Popocatapetl? Is it an indoor game, a cannibal tribe, a curative herb, or neither? Solutions are invited.

There are two very advantageous points about this scheme: (1) The ingenious system of numbering would avoid interference with army routine, which must go on: and (2) men might be encouraged to read Regimental Orders.

This suggestion is made without hope of fee or reward. Its author does not even ask for extra duty pay.

HIS STOCK-IN-TRADE.

Tramp. "CAN YOU SPARE A PORE OLD GENTLEMAN THE PRICE OF A CUP OF KORFEE. SIR?"

Sub. (in high spirits). "RIGHT-O. ALL THE COFFEE YOU WANT AND THE PRICE OF A SHAVE AND A HAIR-CUT AS WELL."

Tramp. "WILL YER? THEN WHO'S A-GOIN' TO KEEP ME WHILE MY 'AIR AN' BEARD GROWS AGAIN?".

A FINE EAR FOR THE HASPIRATE.

"I wish 'as 'ow I warn't married."

Mr. Punt crooned out the impious aspiration as he sorted a judicious modicum of hemp into the canary seed. He spoke in semi-soliloquy, yet quite loud enough to reach the vigilant ear of Mrs. Punt, who was dusting the cages at the other end of the live-stock store. She said nothing in reply, but her eye fixed itself upon him with a glint eloquent of what she might say later.

"Why is that, Mr. Punt?" I asked encouragingly.

"Why, it's on'y to-day, Sir, as I met a lidy, a widder lidy, friend o' Uncle George's down Putney way, as 'as one leg, a nice little bit o' 'ouse property and two great hauk's eggs."

It did seem a rare combination of marriageable qualities. I asked the value of a great auk's egg, and was surprised to learn that a specimen had recently been sold at auction for something like three hundred pounds. I inquired whether all the great auks' eggs that came on the market were genuine, or whether "faked" specimens were to be met with. I had heard, I thought, of "faked" eagles' eggs.

"Different kind o' bird altogether, Sir, and different kind o' egg. Can't very well be imitated. You didn't think as I said great 'awk, Sir?" he asked very anxiously.

"No, no; I understand," I hastened to assure him.

"The 'awk, Sir, is a bird o' the heagle kind; the hauk's a different kind altogether—web-footed, aquatic—was, I should rather say, seeing as 'ow 'e's un appily extinct. Hauk and 'awk, Sir—you take the difference?"

I said that I thought the distinction was perceptible to a fine ear for the aspirate.

The phrase took the little man's fancy wonderfully. "That's it, Sir," he exclaimed, beaming up delightedly at me. "You've 'it it! Done it in one, you 'ave. 'Fine ear for the haspirate'—that's what my darter Maria 'ave and what I, for one, 'ave not. I'm not above confessing of it; 'tain't given to all of us to 'ave everything, as the ant said to the helephant when 'e was boasting about 'is trunk. Some there is as ain't got no ear for music—same as Joe Mangles, the grocer down the street, as 'as caught a heavy cold in 'is 'ead with taking 'is 'at off every time as 'e 'ears 'It's a long long way to Tipperary.' Why, I've knowed men," said Mr. Punt, in the manner of one who works himself up to an almost incredible climax—"I've knowed men as couldn't tell the difference between a linnet's note and a goldfinch."

"Astonishing," I said.

One of the canaries suddenly broke into a rich trill of song, as if to add his personal expression of surprise.

"Now there!" Mr. Punt exclaimed, shaking a podgy forefinger at him. "There's the bird as give all the trouble and cause words 'tween me and Maria, 'e did. 'Artz Mountain roller, that bird is. Beeutiful 'is note, ain't it, Sir?"

There really was a deep full tone, distantly suggestive of a nightingale's, that favourably distinguished the bird's song from the canary's usual acute treble.

"'I'm doubting, Maria,' I say to 'er," Mr. Punt resumed. "No longer ago than this very morning I say it—'I'm doubting whether I did ought to call that 'ere bird a 'Artz Mountain roller,' I say to 'er—me meaning, o' course, as the 'Artz Mountains being, as some thinks, in Germany, that pussons wouldn't so much as go to look at a canary as called 'isself a 'Artz Mountain bird, as it might be a German bird, for all as 'e'd never a-bin no nearer Germany than the Royal Road, Chelsea, not never since 'e chip 'is little shell, 'e 'aven't.

"So I ask 'er the question, doubting like, and she up and say, all saucy as a jay-bird, 'Why, certainly you didn't ought to call 'im so,' she say.

"'Question is, Maria,' I says, 'in that case what did I ought to call 'im?'

"'And I can tell yer that too, Dad,' she say—Maria did. 'You didn't ought to call 'im 'Artz Mountain roller, but ha-Hartz Mountain roller. That's the way to call 'im,' she says—impident little 'ussy! But there—what's in a name, as the white blackbird said when 'e sat on a wooden milestone eating a red blackberry? Still, 'e weren't running a live-stock emporium, I expect, when 'e ask such a question as that 'ere. There's a good deal in 'ow you call a bird, or a dawg or a guinea-pig neither, if you want to pass 'im on to a customer in a honest way o' trade."

I assured Mr. Punt I had not a doubt of it.

"But I shall be a-practisin' my haitches, Sir," he promised me, as I went out with the canary seed which I had called to purchase—"practise 'em 'ard, I shall. It's what I ain't a-got at the present moment—'a fine ear for the haspirate.' Beeutiful expression that, Sir, if you'll excuse me sayin' so. But I don't see no reason as a man mightn't 'ope to acquire it, 'im practising constant and careful—same as a pusson can learn a bullfinch to pipe ''Ome, sweet 'Ome.' That haitch is a funny letter, but it's a letter as I shall practise. Still, haitches or no haitches," he concluded, with a profound sigh, "I wish as I knowed 'ow I could set about coming it over that 'ere one-legged widder lidy at Putney what 'ave the two great hauk's eggs."

Out of the dusty twilight in the far end of the shop Mrs. Punt's eye gleamed balefully.

BLIGHTY IMPRESSIONS.

THE BARBER.

I went into a tobacco-shop, tendered a pound note and asked for a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches. With much regret and a smiling face, she informed me she had the goods but no change.

What a dilemma! A shop with cigarettes and matches, but I couldn't spare a pound note for them.

An inspiration!—I would go into the hairdressing establishment behind the shop, have a shave—which I really didn't need—obtain change and make my purchase. Besides, with so many barbers closed owing to the strike, it was an opportunity.

This is what happened.

"Good morning, Sir. Your turn next but six."

A long, long interval.

"Shave, Sir? Lovely weather we're having. Razor all right, Sir?"

I said as little as possible; it is the only safe thing.

"Face massage, Sir?"

"No, thanks," I mumbled.

"Wonderful thing for the face, Sir; make a new man of you. Invigorates the circulation, improves the complexion—"

"Oh, all right," I gasped.

And then for about twenty minutes snatches of conversation floated to me through bundles of wet towels. My head was having a Turkish bath. My face was covered with ointments and creams. Currents of electricity played about my brow.