id="pgepubid00004">LOOKING WELL FORWARD.

First Survivor from Wreck (to Second Survivor.) "'Ow much ought we to ask off the music-'alls when we get back—'undred-an'-fifty quid a week or two 'undred?"

"Owing to the number of rats and crickets in her bedroom a nurse employed by the Dudley Board of Guardians, it was stated at the meeting of the board yesterday, had resigned.

"It was decided to engage a professional rat-catcher."—Daily Mail.

It is, however, not altogether satisfactory to be nursed by a professional rat-catcher, and some of the patients are already complaining most bitterly of the change.

THE HAT.

"Of course," said the lady of the house, "you can turn yourself into a hermit if you like. We'll build you a little cell, and——"

"What?" I said. "A real hermit, in a long robe like a bath-gown? With a real cell, and a dish of herbs on a plain deal table, and some rocks to sleep on, and a folio volume always open at the same place? May I really be like that?"

"Yes," she said, "that's what you're coming to. And there'll be a notice stuck up on a tree—'This way to the Hermit,' with a painted hand."

"I know the sort," I said. "A hand with only one finger."

"Yes, one finger pointing in the direction of the cell. And all the village children will follow you when you go out, and you'll threaten them with a gnarled stick, and you'll be indicted as a nuisance."

"But not for a long time," I said. "I shall have lots of good hermiting before that happens. I shall have my breakfasts quite alone and nobody will ask me to go to Mrs. Latimer's musical afternoon in London, 4 to 7."

"Well, you're not a hermit yet, so you'll have to come to Mrs. Latimer's with me. You know you'll enjoy it when you get there."

"I won't."

"And you'll meet plenty of your friends."

"But I don't want to meet my friends," I said. "Friends are people yon go on being friends with without meeting them. That's the essence of true friendship, you know. Absence doesn't alter it. You keep on thinking of dear old Jack and what fun you used to have together at Cambridge; and then some day a funny old gentleman comes up to you in the street and says you don't remember him, and you pretend you know him quite well, and it's Jack all the time, and you wonder how he's got so old while you yourself have kept on being as young as ever. That's friendship."

"This," she said, "is not an Essay Club."

"What should a woman know of friendship?" I said bitterly. "Besides, I shall have to get a new top-hat."

"Well," she said, "there's nothing so very awful in that. But what's the matter with the old one?"

"The old one," I said, "is a blacked sepulchre, and even the black part of it is not very good. The lining is of the sort that makes it necessary to place it on a table with the opening down. Fortunate woman, your hats require no lining and you don't take them off. You cannot sympathise with my feelings. Such a top-hat as mine is good enough for a Board meeting, but it cannot go to Mrs. Latimer's musical afternoon. Her footman would despise me."

"Very well," she said, "get your new hat and have it ready for this day fortnight."

The upshot of this conversation was that on the following day I went to London, wearing my old top-hat, and called at Messrs. Hutchfield's, the famous hatters. It is not a very large shop, but it is very high, and something like a million white hat-boxes, each presumably containing a hat, are stacked in gleaming tiers from floor to ceiling. The higher ones are fetched down by means of