AWAY WITHOUT IT!"

DR. VAUGHAN, of Salford, is to be the New Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster. He is a bright cheerful-looking man now, but it is to be feared that the extra toil and trouble of London may soon give his features a Care-Vaughan expression.

THE BOUNDS OF SCIENCE.

(Fragment from a Fin de Monde Romance.)

The Student had read many things, but he had not yet considered the subject of Coal. He knew that it was expensive, but he had not imagined that there was so little in the world. But he at length obtained the requisite knowledge, and set to work to put things to-rights. He called upon the Secretary of a Transatlantic Ocean Steamer Company, and remonstrated with him upon the waste with which the transactions of his institution were conducted.

"You carry your passengers too rapidly," he observed.

"As how?" asked the Secretary.

"Why I am given to understand that the power generated by the coal gives each person on board your ships a rate of progression night and day of twenty-four horses."

"And, if it does—what then?"

"Why, it is too much," returned the Student. "All the coal in the world will be exhausted in something like four or five hundred years; and so, while there is yet time, I had better go somewhere where coal is a secondary consideration. What shall I do?"

And then the Secretary advised the Student to take a ticket to the Centre of Africa—and the Student followed his advice. But the day before the boat started, the Student once more appeared.

"I am afraid," said he, "I must ask you for the return of my money. I find that it will be useless for me to go to the Centre of Africa, as the Sun is about to cease giving warmth."

"Dear me!" cried the Secretary, "I was under the impression that the Sun was timed to last about one hundred millions of years?"

"It may have been in the far distant past," returned the Student, sadly, "but recent statistics fix the termination of the Sun's existence at a much nearer date. There is no doubt that the Sun will not last more than four millions of years, or five millions at longest. Now give me my money!"

And (of course) the bullion was promptly returned.

BROKEN BONDS.

La France. "IS IT POSSIBLE!—BUT SIX MONTHS AGO!—AND NOW—"

LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

No. XII.—TO PLAUSIBILITY.

DEAR OLD PLAU,

Hear you have been seen about again with GENIALITY. Poor GENIALITY, it may be admitted, is often something of a fool when he is by himself, but when you and he begin to hunt in couples, you are a deadly pair. I once knew a St. Bernard dog—you will perceive the analogy by-and-by—who lived on terms of friendship with a Skye terrier. By himself Rufus was a mild and inoffensive giant. He adored the house-cat, and used to help her, in a ponderous way, with the care of her numerous family. Many a time have I seen him placidly extended before a fire, while puss used his shaggy body as a sleeping box, and once he was observed to help that anxious tabby-mother with the toilet of her kittens by licking them carefully all over. At every lick of Rufus's huge prehensile tongue a kitten was lifted bodily into the air, only, however, to descend washed and unharmed to the ground. But out of doors, in the society of Flick, Rufus's whole nature seemed to change. He became a demon-exterminator of cats. Led on by his yelping little friend, he chased them fiercely to their last retreats, and, if he caught them, masticated them without mercy. Once too, on a morning that had been appointed for a big covert-shoot, I noticed this strangely assorted pair come into the breakfast-room panting and dirty. They were not usually afoot before breakfast. What could their condition mean? A flustered keeper arrived shortly afterwards and explained everything. "Them two dogs o' yourn, Sir," he said, "the big 'un and the little 'un, 'ave run all the coverts through. There's not a pheasant left in 'em. They're sailin' all over the country."

The truth was that Flick had organised the expedition with extraordinary secrecy and cunning. He had persuaded Rufus to join him, and the result was that we shot forty pheasants instead of the three hundred on which we had counted.

Now, my dear PLAU, I merely record this little story, and leave you to apply it. But I may remind you of incidents that touch you more nearly. Do you remember GORTON? Many years ago GORTON went to Oxford with a brilliant reputation. Every triumph that the University could confer was held to be within his grasp. His contemporaries looked upon him as a marvellous being, who was destined to rise to the top of whatever tree he felt disposed to climb. He was really a delightful fellow, fresh, smiling, expansive, amusing, and his friends all worshipped him. Of course he went in for the Hertford. His success was certain; it was merely a question as to who should be second. On the evening before the examination began, there was a strange commotion in GORTON's College. GORTON, who was supposed to have been reading hard, was found at about twelve o'clock in the quad in his nightgown. He was on all fours, and was engaged in eating grass and roaring out ribald snatches of Latin songs in a shrill voice. When the porter approached him he said he was a hippogriff, and that in another ten minutes he intended to fly to Iffley and back in half a second. He was carried up to bed raving horribly. On the following day he grew calmer, and in a week he was himself again. But by that time, of course, the examination was over, and DUBBIN was soon afterwards announced as the successful competitor.

Judging the past by what I know now, I cannot doubt that the madness of GORTON was what patrons of the prize-ring call a put-up job, for he never afterwards showed the smallest symptom of lunacy. He had not worked sufficiently, and knew he must fail. So he became temporarily insane, to avoid defeat and maintain his reputation for scholarship. He left Oxford without taking a degree, and owing money right and left—to tradesmen, to his friends, to his tutor. Then he disappeared for some years.

Next he suddenly cropped up again in Ireland. A small borough constituency had been suddenly declared vacant. GORTON happened to be staying in the hotel. He promptly offered himself as a candidate, and plunged with extraordinary vigour into the contest. The way that man fooled a simple-hearted Irish electorate was marvellous. They came to believe him to be a millionnaire, a king of finance, a personage at whose nod Statesmen trembled, a being who mingled with all that was highest and best in the land. He cajoled them, he flattered them, he talked them round his little finger, he rollicked with them, opened golden vistas of promise to everyone of them, smiled at their wives, defied the Lord Lieutenant, and was elected by a crushing majority over a native pork-merchant who had nothing but his straightforward honesty to commend him. Of course there was a petition, and equally of course GORTON was unseated. Then came the reckoning. GORTON had apparently intimated that two of the great London political Clubs were so warmly interested in his candidature as to have undertaken to pay all his expenses. But when application was made to these institutions, their secretaries professed a