man sitting in the middle in plain clothes and several other nice old men in plain clothes sitting about on the benches, with little card-tables in front of them. Two or three of them have beards, which is against the best traditions of the Law. But they are very jolly old men, and now and then one of them sits up and moves his lips. You can see then that he is putting a sly question to the barrister who is talking at the counter, though you can't hear anything because they all whisper. While the barrister is answering, another old man wakes up and puts a sly question, so as to confuse the barrister. That is the game. The barrister who gets thoroughly annoyed first loses the case.

They have quite enough to annoy them already. They are all cooped up in a minute pen about eight feet square. There are eight of them, four K.C.'s and four underlings. They have nowhere to put their papers and nowhere to stretch their legs. They sit there getting cramp, or they stand at the counter talking to the old men. In either position they grow more and more annoyed. Four of them are famous men, earning thousands and thousands. Why do they endure it? Because lawyers, contrary to the common belief, are the most long-suffering profession in the world. That is why they are the only Trade Union whose members have only half-an-hour for lunch. Well, it is their funeral; but if I were a K.C. sitting in that pen, with the whole of the House of Lords empty in front of me, I should get over the counter and walk about. Then the Lord Chancellor might have a fit; and that alone would make it worth while.

The only other interesting place in the Houses of Parliament is the Strangers' Dining Room. This is interesting because the Members there are all terrified lest you should hear what they are going to say. They never know who may be at the next table—a journalist or a Bolshevist or a landowner—and they talk with one eye permanently over their shoulder. It must be very painful.

But of course the best time to visit the House is when it is not sitting, because then, if you are lucky, you may sit with impunity on the Front Bench and put your feet up on the table. If you are unlucky you will be shot at dawn.

A. P. H.

Excitable Tenor (during dispute about the bill). "But, my friend, you not know me who I am—no? I am Spofferino. To-night I sing at ze opera—'Butterfly.'"

Waiter (unimpressed). "Um—you look like a butterfly!"

We fear the advertiser has put his foot in it.

LABOUR AND THE RUSSIAN BALLET.

I wasn't present at the station when Madame Pavlova arrived in London, bringing with her, as I have been assured by six different newspapers, no fewer than three hundred and eighty-five pieces of luggage. But I have seen, thanks to Sir J. M. Barrie, the transformation which a Russian prima ballerina makes in an English country home, so I happen to know exactly what occurred. I think it deserves to be recorded. Very well then.

Scene—A Metropolitan railway terminus, though you wouldn't perhaps recognise it, because it looks a little like the interior of a Greek cathedral and a little like the fair at Nijni Novgorod, and the posters have obviously been painted by Mr. Wyndham Lewis or somebody like