little ultimate joy to herself. But she is the sort of girl that can never resist the back-door tout. She is constantly being persuaded to buy something for which she pays a small weekly sum. This is entered in a book, and the only conditions are that she must continue paying that sum for the rest of her natural lifetime.

On these lines Elizabeth has "put in" for many articles in the course of her chequered career. She has had fleeting possession of a steel engraving of Queen Victoria, a watch that never would go—until her payments ceased—a sewing-machine (treadle), a set of vases and a marble timepiece. The timepiece, she explained, was destined for "the bottom drawer," which she had begun to furnish from the moment a young man first inquired which was her night out.

As all these things were taken from her directly her payments fell off, I thought I had better give her the benefit of my ripe judgment. "I shouldn't buy anything on the instalment plan, if I were you," I advised. "Some people seem to be made for the system, but you are not one of them."

"But I 'aven't told you wot I'm buyin' now," she said excitedly, putting a plate on the rack as she spoke. I ought to say she meant to put it on the rack; that it fell two inches short wasn't Elizabeth's fault.

"It was cracked afore," she murmured mechanically as she gathered up the fragments. "Yes, I pays a shillin' a week an' I gets a grammerfone."

"A what?" I gasped.

"A grammerfone—to play, you know."

"Where will it play?" I asked feebly.

"'Ere," she said, waving a comprehensive hand; "an' it won't 'arf liven the place up. My friend 'as 'ers goin' all day long."

I stifled a moan of horror, for I am one of the elect few who loathe gramophones, even at their best and costliest.

"Elizabeth," I cried, tears of anguish rising to my eyes, "let me implore you not to get one of those horr—I mean, not to be imposed on again."

"I've got it," she announced. "I meantersay I've paid the first shillin' an' it's comin' to-morrow. I 'ave it a month on trial."

The month certainly was a trial—for me. Ours is not one of those old-fashioned residences with thick walls that muffle sound, and where servants can be consigned to dwell in the bowels of the earth. Every noise which arises in the kitchen, from Elizabeth's badinage with the butcher's boy to the raucous grind of the knife-machine, echoes through the house viâ the study where I work.

Thus, although Elizabeth kept the kitchen-door shut, I found myself compelled for one-half of the day to consider an insistent demand as to the ultimate destination of flies in the winter-time. The rest of the day the gramophone gave us K-K-K-Katie. (Elizabeth had only two records to begin with.)

I became unnerved. My work suffered. It began to trickle back to me accompanied by the regrets of editors; and to writers the regrets of editors are the most poignant in the world.

The situation was saved by the most up-to-date tout of the whole back-door tribe. He persuaded Elizabeth to go in for Spiritualism. Do not misunderstand me. You can be a Spiritualist and also keep a gramophone, but, if you are Elizabeth, you cannot keep the two running at the same time if you must pay a shilling per week for each. When she sought my opinion I strongly advised the séances, which I said were cheap at the price; indeed I thought they were when the gramophone departed.

It was now Elizabeth's turn to become unnerved. She has a mind that is peculiarly open to impressions, and communion with the spirits unbalanced her. She justified her expenditure of a shilling weekly by placing the utmost faith in them.

"I 'ad a message from them there spirits larst night," she informed me one day, "an' they tell me I must change my 'abitation."

"What do you mean?" I asked, startled.

"I put a message through, arskin' them when I should get a settled young man, an' they told me that the fates are agen me in my present dwellin', so if you'll please take my notice from—"

I will not go through the sickening formula. Every housewife must have heard it several times at least in the past year or so. I accepted Elizabeth's resignation and began to concentrate on newspaper announcements. But I took an utter dislike to the spirits and listened with cold aloofness when Elizabeth began, "I was talkin' to the spirit of my young man larst night—"

"I didn't know you had the spirit of any young man," I interrupted.

"Yes, I 'ave. I mean Ned Akroyd, 'oo was drownded."

Now I have never believed in the alleged drowning of the said Ned. The news—conveyed to Elizabeth by his mate—that he had fallen from a ferry-boat near Eel Pie Island seemed unconvincing, especially as it happened shortly after Elizabeth had lent him fifteen-and-six.

"I 'ad quite a long talk with 'im," she went on. "Next time I'm goin' to arst 'im about the fifteen-and-six 'e borrowed, an' see if I can't get it back some'ow."

How the spirit would have considered this proposition is still uncertain, for Elizabeth never returned to the séances. She came to me one day in a state of violent agitation. "I see Ned Akroyd when I was out larst night," she began, "an' would you believe it, 'e's no more dead than I am, the wretch!"

"Well, aren't you glad?" I inquired.

"Glad, an' 'im with another girl an' pretendin' all the time not to see me! Men are 'ounds, that's what they are. An' I'll go to no more seeonces. They're a swindle."

"They were wrong about telling you to change your habitation too, weren't they?" I suggested insinuatingly.

"Course they were." Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll be able to 'ave the grammerfone back now," she said.

At the moment I am writing to the sounds of K-K-K-Katie, which, I fear, is giving me rather a syncopated style. But if the Editor is k-k-k-kind he will not banish me from P-P-P-Punch for this reason, as anyone can see my intentions are g-g-g-good.

Stay! K-K-K-Katie has ceased and I can think lucidly. An inspiration has come to me. Has not Elizabeth in her time wrought havoc among my crockery? The hour is ripe for me to retaliate.

To morrow at dawn I shall examine the gramophone records and—they will come in two in my hands.

It will be the first time I have broken any record.

Wife (to husband being bundled in as train moves off). "Did ye get return tickets?"

Husband. "Noa (puff)—didn't 'ave time."

"MISUSE OF RESEARCH GRANTS.

By Professor ——, F.R.S."

Sunday Paper Poster.

We refuse to believe it.

THE CONSPIRATORS.

III.

My dear Charles,—Essential to that millennium which our restless revolutionaries are after is your head on a charger and my head on a charger; provided both heads are present it may be the same charger for all they care. When you think of the importance which we of the detested middle classes attach to our heads and the regrettable violence we might exhibit towards whoever called at our houses to collect them, then it seems to me you must confess to a sneaking admiration for the bravery of the turbulent minority in attacking so big a problem.

But when you get the inside details of their schemes you find that discretion is not only the better part but the whole of their valour. For arms you find