juggins would rise, whatever I wrote. But fancy landing you!—Yours ever, Beefers."

Now how can a man save his country on a thing like that?

SMILES AND LAUGHTER.

REVERIE.

"No, darling, not in the study. Your father went round in bogey to-day and wants to have a nice long think about it."

HAVE YOU ANYTHING TO SELL?

(With acknowledgments to "The Daily Mail.")

Have you anything you think of burning as useless, but would naturally prefer to sell? Why not try one of our small advertisements? Every day we receive thousands of letters testifying to their power. Here is one, picked up at random:—

"Please discontinue my advertisement of a half-pair of bellows and a stuffed canary, as the first insertion has had such remarkable results. On looking out of my bedroom window this morning I observed a queue of some hundreds of people extending from my doorstep down to the trams in the main road. They included ladies on campstools, messenger boys, a sad-looking young man in an ulster who was reading Swinburne's poems, and others. Only with difficulty could the milkman fight his way through to place the can on the doorstep, and the contents were quickly required to restore a lady who had turned faint for want of a camp-stool. While I was shaving, a motor mail-van dashed up and left seven sacks of postal replies to the advertisement. One by one, eighty-three people were admitted to view the goods, and a satisfactory bargain was made with the last of these. I then telephoned for the police to come and remove the disappointed thousands, who were disposed to be riotous. My garden gate is off its hinges, the garden itself has the lawn inextricably mixed with the flower-beds, my marble step is cracked in three places, and my stair-carpet is caked with mud. I do not know any other paper in this country in which a two-shilling advertisement could produce such encouraging results."

ORANGES AND LEMONS.

I.—The Invitation.

"Dear Myra," wrote Simpson at the beginning of the year,—"I have an important suggestion to make to you both, and I am coming round to-morrow night after dinner about nine o'clock. As time is so short I have asked Dahlia and Archie to meet me there, and if by any chance you have gone out we shall wait till you come back.

Yours ever,
Samuel.

P.S.—I have asked Thomas too."

"Well?" said Myra eagerly, as I gave her back the letter.

In deep thought I buttered a piece of toast.

"We could stop Thomas," I said. "We might ring up the Admiralty and ask them to give him something to do this evening. I don't know about Archie. Is he——"

"Oh, what do you think it is? Aren't you excited?" She sighed and added, "Of course I know what Samuel is."

"Yes. Probably he wants us all to go to the Wonder Zoo together ... or he's discovered a new way of putting, or—— I say, I didn't know Archie and Dahlia were in town."

"They aren't. But I expect Samuel telegraphed to them to meet him under the clock at Charing Cross, disguised, when they would hear of something to their advantage. Oh, I wonder what it is. It must be something real this time."

Since the day when Simpson woke me up at six o'clock in the morning to show me his stance-for-a-full-wooden-club shot I have distrusted his enthusiasms; but Myra loves him as a mother; and I—I couldn't do without him; and when a man like that invites a whole crowd of people to come to your flat just about the time when you are wondering what has happened to the sardines on toast, and why doesn't she bring them in—well, it isn't polite to put the chain on the door and explain through the letter-box that you have gone away for a week.

"We'd better have dinner a bit earlier to be on the safe side," I said, as Myra gave me a parting brush down in the hall. "If any further developments occur in the course of the day ring me up at the office. By the way, Simpson doesn't seem to have invited Peter. I wonder why not. He's nearly two, and he ought to be in it. Myra, I'm sure I'm tidy now."

"Pipe, tobacco, matches, keys, money?"

"Everything," I said. "Bless you. Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Myra lingeringly. "What do you think he meant by 'as time is so short'?"

"I don't know. At least," I added, looking at my watch, "I do know. I shall be horribly late. Good-bye."

I fled down the stairs into