travelled rapidly up and down the table. On the down journey it glanced off the white, after which, still going at a tremendous pace, it made a complete tour of the table and concluded its meteoric career in the bottom right-hand pocket. Meanwhile the red and the white had both departed on voyages of their own, the terminus in each case being the self-same pocket. (See diagram.) After the balls had been taken out, examined and counted, and James's person had been searched to see if he were concealing any, the marker pronounced this to be a 10-shot, and the game was thus strikingly ended in James's favour.

BEHIND THE SCENES IN CINEMA-LAND.

"Hop it, Leander! The Hellespont's down at the other end of the tank. This end's 'Fun at Flounder Beach.'"

Commercial Candour.

"The mere selling of an article is a simple matter, but keeping the customer sold is our principal aim."—Advt. in West Indian Paper.

First Novice. "Would you mind my passing, please?"

Second ditto. "Not at all—not at all—if you don't mind using me as the handrail."

MY DÉBUT IN "PUNCH."

I am, I hope, decently modest. When I said so once to Margery she remarked that there was no need to make a virtue of necessity. But younger sisters, of course...

I came down to breakfast at my usual time—as the others were finishing—and found a letter awaiting me. I opened it under the usual fire of insults from Margery and John. To-day I ignored them, however, and my young heart gave a small jump. I am a modest young man.

"What's the matter with you, little Sunbeam?" asked John (he is Cecilia's husband, through no fault of mine). "Is the tailor more rude than usual, or has she found out your address?"

"The Vicar has asked him to sing at the Band of Hope," suggested Margery.

I commenced my breakfast.

"What is it, Alan?" asked Cecilia.

"Oh, nothing," I said easily. "The proof of a thing of mine that Punch has accepted."

They hadn't a word to say for a few seconds, then Margery began:—

"Poor old dear, it must be some awful mistake."

I ignored Margery.

"But, Alan darling, how beautiful! You've been trying for years and years and now at last it has happened. I do hope it isn't a mistake," said Cecilia anxiously. She was trying to be nice, you know. I'm sure she was. I went on with my breakfast.

"Well, John," said Cecilia, "can't you congratulate him, or are you too jealous?"

John sighed deeply and pondered.

"Terrible how Punch has gone down since our young days, isn't it?" he said heavily.

I spent a miserable time until it appeared. Somehow or other Cecilia let the great glad news get about the village. Farley, our newsagent and tobacconist, held me when I went in for an ounce of the usual mild.

"So I 'ear you've 'ad a article printed by this 'ere Punch, Sir," he said. "Somethink laughable it'd be, I suppose like, eh?"

"Not half," I said, striving hard to impersonate a successful humourist.

"Ah, well, it's all good for business," he said, as one who sees the silver lining. "I've 'ad quite a number of orders for the paper for the next two or three weeks."

I crept from the shop, only to meet an atrocious woman from "The Gables," who stopped me with a little shriek of joy.

"Oh, Mr. Jarvis, I've been dying to meet you, do you know. I always have thought you so funny, ever since that little sketch you got up for the Bazaar last summer. I said to my husband when I heard of your success, 'I'm not surprised. After that sketch, I knew.' Do tell me when it's appearing. I'm sure I shall simply scream at it."

I escaped after a time and wondered whether it was too late to stop publication of the horrible thing.

I came down to breakfast and found John with a copy beside him. I looked at him.

"Yes," he said, "the worst has happened. It is in print. We have been waiting for you to appear."

He turned the pages and cleared his throat.

"I shall now read the article aloud," he said. "Each time I raise my hand the audience will please burst into hearty laughter."

Margery giggled.

"Cecilia," I said, rising, "if you don't control this reptile that you have married, if you don't force him to hold his peace, if you allow him to read one word, I'll throw the bread-knife at him and ... and pour my coffee all over the tablecloth."

"John," said Cecilia, "have a little thought for others and read it quietly to yourself."

Cecilia meant well, of course, but Margery giggled again.

John read it to himself in a dead silence, sighed heavily and passed it to Margery.

"We shall never live it down," he said, putting his head into his hands and gazing moodily at the marmalade.

Margery read it and giggled three or four times; but Margery giggles at anything.

Cecilia read it and beamed.

"Alan, dear," she said, "it's lovely! Of course they accepted it. John, you wretch, say you liked it." (Cecilia can be a dear.)

"Well, if I must tell the truth," said John, "it isn't quite so bad as I expected. In fact I very much doubt whether he wrote it at all. If he did—well, it's a marvellous fluke, that's all."

I smiled.

"You may smile, swelled-head," said John; "but I'll bet you five golden guineas to a bad tanner you couldn't do it again."

"Done," I said.

After a few days, however, I realised that I had made a mistake. Even a bad sixpence is worth something nowadays.

Cecilia and Margery vied with each other in offering me the feeblest suggestions for articles that they felt sure would reduce a rhinoceros to hysterics. John presented me with a copy of A Thousand and One Jokes and Anecdotes "to prove he was a sportsman," he said. I started to look for a bad sixpence.

Then Margery said to me:—

"Why don't you write and explain the whole thing to the Editor and offer to go halves if he prints it?"

I looked at her in amazement.

"You horrible little cheat!" I said.

However, on thinking it over carefully there seems a lot to say for the idea and it's really quite fair. Anyhow I can't possibly let John win. So here's the story, and with any luck it will cost John five golden guineas. But I shan't give the Editor half.

Little Girl (rather sceptical about what she regards as her new toy). "Put him on the floor, Mummy, and see if he'll go."

The Perils of Humour.

From Punch:—

"'The Profiteer's Anthem.

The hymns to be sung will be (1) "All people that on earth do well."'—Rangoon