Rigi's height

He jodels to the astonished air,

Lloyd George is bent on sitting tight;

Nor, as he did in Thomas' case,

Nurses a scheme for saving Smillie's face.

A WHIFF OF THE BRINY.

As I entered the D.E.F. Company's depôt, Melancholy marked me for her own. Business reasons—not my own but the more cogent business reasons of an upperling—had just postponed my summer holiday; postponed it with a lofty vagueness to "possibly November. We might be able to let you go by then, my boy." November! What would Shrimpton-on-Sea be like even at the beginning of November? Lovely sea-bathing, delicious boating, enchanting picnics on the sand? I didn't think. Melancholy tatooed me all over with anchors and pierced hearts, to show that I was her very own, not to be taken away.

I clasped my head in my hands and gazed in dumb agony at the menu card. A kind waitress listened with one ear.

"Poached egg and bacon—two rashers," I murmured.

While I waited I crooned softly to myself:—

When the dish was brought I eyed it sadly. Sadly I raised a mouthful of bacon to my lips....

Swish!!! The exclamation-marks signify the suddenness with which the train swept into the station. I leapt down on to the platform and drew a long breath. The sea! In huge whiffs the ozone rolled into my nostrils. I gurgled with delight. Everything smelt of the dear old briny: the little boys running about with spades and pails; the great basketsful of fish; the blue jerseys of the red-faced men who, at rare intervals, toiled upon the deep. At the far end of the platform I saw the reddest face of all, that of my dear old landlord. I rushed to meet him....

Ah me, ah me! The incrusted-papered walls of the depôt girt me in again. I took another mouthful of bacon—a larger one....

Bang! Someone was thumping on the door of my bathing-machine. What a glorious scent of salt rose from the sea-washed floor! "Are you coming out?" asked a persuasive voice. "No, no, no!" I shouted joyously. "I am going in." What a dive! I never knew before how superlatively graceful my dives could be. Away through the breakers with a racing stroke. Over on my back, kicking fountains at the sun. In this warm water I should stay in for hours and hours and....

Pah! That horrible incrusted paper back again! I bolted the remaining rasher....

The boat rocked gently in a glassy sea. They were almost climbing over the gunwale in their eagerness to be caught. Lovely wet shining wriggly fellows; all the varieties of the fishmonger's slab and more. In season or out, they didn't care; they thought only of doing honour to my line. No need in future for me to envy the little boys on the river-bank who pulled in fish after fish when I never got a bite. How delightfully salt the fish smelt! And the sun drew out the scent of salt from the gently lapping waves. It was all so quiet and restful. Almost could I have slumbered, even as I pulled them in and in and....

The waitress must have giggled. Once again the incrusted paper leered at me in ail its horrible pink incrustiness. There was no bacon left on my plate. But the delicious scent of salt still lingered. Alas, my holiday was over! I must speed me or I should miss the train to town.

"Good-bye!" I shouted to the manageress and shook her by the hand. She seemed surprised. "Such a happy time," I assured her. "I wish I could have it all over again."

She said something which I could not hear. Sea-bathing tends to make me a little deaf.

"If I have forgotten anything—my pyjamas or my shaving strop—would you be so kind as to send them on? Good-bye again."

Something fluttered to the floor. The manageress stooped. I was just passing through the portals.

"You have forgotten this," she called.

It was the dear little square piece of paper which contained my bill. I looked at it in amazement.

"What!" I exclaimed—"only one-and-twopence for a poached egg and bacon and all that salt flavour thrown in?"

Our Modest Advertisers.

"European lady (widow), rather lovely, would like to hear from Army Officer or Civilian in a similar position, with a view to keeping up a congenial correspondence."—Indian Paper.

"A correspondent in the Air Force writes from Bangalore:—

'It is rather amusing to notice the number of people in the English community who have never before seen an aeroplane coming up to the aerodrome and gazing in wonder at the old buses.'"—Evening Standard.

Even in England this spectacle is still the object of remark.

"We really feel inclined to parody Kipling and say—

'One hand stuck in your dress shirt from to show heart is cline,

The other held behind your back, to signal, tax again.'"

Singapore Free Press.

We can only hope our esteemed contemporary will not feel this way again.

THE ROAD TO RUIN.

Labour. "WHAT'S YOUR GAME?"

Mr. Smillie. "I'M OUT FOR NATIONALISATION."

Labour. "AH! AND YOU'RE GOING TO BEGIN BY NATIONALISING STARVATION?"

Mrs. Smithson-Jones (to her husband, who will garden in his pyjamas before breakfast). "Do come in, Adolphus; you're delaying the harvest."

THE ART OF POETRY.

IV.

Good morning, gentlemen. Before I pass to the subject of my lecture today I must deal briefly with a personal matter of some delicacy. Since I began this series of lectures on the Art of Poetry I notice that the new Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Mr. W.P. Ker, in what I think is questionable taste, has delivered an inaugural lecture on the same subject under the same title. On the question of good taste I do not wish to say much, except that I should have thought that any colleague of mine, even an entirely new Professor in a provincial university, would have recognised the propriety of at least communicating to me his intention before committing this monstrous plagiarism.

However, as I say, on that aspect of the matter I do not propose to dwell, though it does seem to me that decency imposes certain limits to that kind of academic piracy, and that those limits the Professor has overstepped. In these fermenting days of licence and indiscipline persons in responsible positions at our seats of learning have a great burden of example to bear before the world, and if it were to go forth that actions of