because they are eaten by the mackerel and because they look white when they are swimming upside down.

Anyhow Walter and John and Isabel and Margaret and Rupert and Stéphanie and little Foch began life as whitebait. They used to charge about the Cornish seas with whole platefuls of other whitebait, millions of them, and wherever they went they were pursued by thousands of mackerel, who wanted to eat them. One day John felt that the moment was very near when he would be eaten by a mackerel, and he was quite right. Isabel felt the same thing, but she was wrong. She jumped out of the water and was eaten by a sea-gull. When the fishermen saw Isabel leaping into the air they came out and caught the mackerel in a net. They also caught Margaret with a lot of other whitebait; and she was eaten by a barrister at "Claridge's."

There were now four of the family who had not been eaten by anyone. It is extraordinary when you come to think of it that any herring ever contrives to reach maturity at all. What with the mackerel and the seagulls and the barristers, everybody seems to be against it. However, Walter, Rupert and Foch succeeded. Stéphanie just missed. Walter and Rupert and Foch had jolly soft roes, a fact which is recorded in a cynical little poem by the precocious Foch, believed to be the only literary work of a whitebait now extant. We have only space here to quote the opening couplet:—

The survivors of the family had now to choose a career. From the beginning it seems to have been recognised that Stéphanie at least would have to be content with a humbler sphere than her more gifted brothers. She had a hard roe and was rather looked down upon. But she was an independent little thing and her pride revolted at a life of subjection at home; so while still a girl she went off on her own and got mixed up with some pilchards who were just being caught in a net. Stéphanie was caught too and became a sardine. She was carefully oiled and put in a tin, and she was eaten at a picnic near Hampton Court. But there is every reason to suppose that she was eaten happy, since in those less exacting circles nobody seemed to mind about her hard roe, which had been a perpetual bugbear to her in the herring world.

Meanwhile the remaining three had decided on a career. They were determined to be fresh herrings. This is of course the highest ambition of all herrings, though sadly few succeed in attaining it. One herring in his time plays many parts (Shakespeare); he can seldom say with confidence what exactly he will be to-morrow; but he can be fairly certain that it won't be a fresh herring. Of our three survivors Rupert alone was to win the coveted distinction. He grew to be a fine boy and was eaten at Hammersmith, where his plump but delicate roe gave the greatest satisfaction. It was not eaten in the ordinary humdrum way, but was thickly spread on a piece of buttered toast, generously peppered, and devoured. And when his "wish" was placed on the kitchen-range, swelled rapidly and burst with a loud report, his cup of happiness was full.

Little Foch, alas, failed to fulfil his youthful promise and became a common bloater. Worse than that, he was bloated too thoroughly and was almost impossible to eat. Even his lovely roe, the pride of his heart, became so salt that the Rector of Chitlings finally rejected it with ignominy, though not before he had consumed so much of it that he had to drink the whole of his sermon-water before he began to preach.

But it was Walter, Walter the chronicler, Walter the clever, the daring, the ambitious, leader in every escapade, adviser in every difficulty, who was to suffer the crowning humiliation. Walter became a kipper. If there is one thing that a herring cannot stand it is to be separated from his roe. Walter's roe was ruthlessly torn from him and served up separate on toast, with nothing to show that it was the glorious roe of Walter. It was eaten at the Criterion by a stockbroker, and it might have been anybody's roe. Meanwhile the mutilated frame, the empty shell of Walter, was squashed flat in a wooden box with a mass of others and sold at an auction by the pound. It broke his heart.

A.P.H.

FLOWERS' NAMES.

Lady's Slipper.

The Gladiatorial Spirit.

"Crossbie would have done better to have shot himself, but he gave the ball to his partner."—Provincial Paper.

"MILK PRICES UP.

HIGHER CHARGE TO MEET THE COST OF PETROL."

Daily Paper.

We always thought it was water that they used.

THE PERSUASIVE POWER OF BEAUTY IN ART.

Bored Spectator. "'Ere, not so much of the ca-canny."

A DIFFERENCE OF CLASS.

It is without doubt the most expensive hotel on the front, and the palatial dining-room in which we have just lunched is furnished and decorated in that sumptuously luxurious style to which only wealth, untrammelled by art, is able to attain. Personally I cannot afford to take my meals at such places, and I know that the same holds good of my fellow-guest, Charteris. Charteris was the best scholar of our year at Oriel, and since his demobilisation he and his wife have been living in two rooms, except during the periods when their son joins them for his holidays from Winchester. But our host is still possessed of an obstinate wealth which even the War has done little to diminish, and, as he himself puts it, is really