class="smcap">Johnny Raikes shooting this year? I never saw such a chap for rocketers. They can't escape him.

Chalmers. I asked him to-day, but he couldn't come. I think for pheasants he's quite the best shot in England. Nobody can beat him at that game.

Fourth Sp. Hasn't he got some row or other on with Crackside?

Chalmers. Yes. That makes fourteen rows Crackside has got going on all at once. He seems to revel in them. His latest move was to refuse to pay tithe, and when the parson levied a distress, he made all his tenants drunk and walked at their head blowing a post-horn. He's as mad as a hatter.

So there you have a sample conversation, sketched in outline. You will find it accurate enough. All you have to do is to select for yourself the part you mean to play in it.

Something to Live For.

(From the Literary Club Smoking-room.)

Cynicus. I'm waiting till my friends are dead, in order to write My Reminiscences?

Amicus. Ah, but remember, "De mortuis nil nisi bonum."

Cynicus. Quite so. I shall tell nothing but exceedingly good stories about them.

So Like Her!—"I can never trust him," said Mrs. R., alluding to a friend of hers, who considered himself well up in Shakspeare, "because I've found out before now that he gargles his quotations."

Note.—"The Man who Would," will appear next week. No. IV.

THE RHODES COLOSSUS

STRIDING FROM CAPE TOWN TO CAIRO.

THE RHODES COLOSSUS.

["Mr. Rhodes announced that it was his intention, either with the help of his friends or by himself, to continue the telegraph northwards, across the Zambesi, through Nyassaland, and along Lake Tanganyika to Uganda. Nor is this all.... This colossal Monte Cristo means to cross the Soudan ... and to complete the overland telegraph line from Cape Town to Cairo; that is, from England to the whole of her possessions or colonies, or 'spheres of influence' in Africa."—The Times.]

A HEARTY WELCOME.

Local Flyman (who also officiates at Funerals). "Mornin', Sir. Glad to see you out again! Really thought I should 'a' had the honor of Drivin' you to the Cemetery, Sir!"

Taxes. A Hoarding and Saving Clause.—À propos of an article in the Times on this subject, and a paragraph of Mr. Punch's, last week, anent "Hoardings," we may now put a supplementary question in this form, "As Government taxes Savings, would it not be quite consistent to tax Hoardings?" Since the answer must, logically, be in the affirmative, let Government begin at once with all the Hoardings displaying any kind of hideous pictorial advertisement.

"He rumbles so in his conversation," observed Mrs. R. of an orator whose sentences were considerably involved, "that I can seldom catch the grist of what he says."

PRACTICAL THEOSOPHY.

Mrs. Besant is said to have told a representative of a daily paper, that "an adept in Theosophy uses his supernatural powers solely for his own convenience, just as ordinary people avail themselves of a messenger, or the telephone or telegraph."

We have it on the very best of authority that the discharge of handbills from aërial bombs is to be entirely surpassed as a method for advertising a commodity, by a new and protected process.

"A Company is being formed," so runs the prospectus, "for the express purpose of importing Mahatmas of the very best vintage (guaranteed extra sec), direct from Thibet, where an exceptionally luxuriant crop has been produced during past years.

"They will be shipped to any port in the United Kingdom, and delivered to any address, carriage free, at prices which will compare most favourably with those quoted by foreign firms for inferior articles.

"The trade supplied by special contract.

"They will prove invaluable to advertisers and others.

"No family should be without one. Order early.

"They can be used for a variety of purposes; but they will be found most particularly serviceable for distributing handbills and posters, especially in inaccessible places.

"Domestic