class="sc">Velasquez Venus). "Pass along them covers, George—the Suffragettes is coming."

"It would be amusing, if it were not athletic, to read that this satirist who ridiculed sentiment made himself ridiculous by falling violently in love with a young girl of eighteen."

Winnipeg Telegram.

He who runs may read—but apparently he mustn't be amused.

"It is known the play is in three acts and nine scenes, and that there is an exceptionally long cast, but beyond that the strictest scenery is being preserved."—Birmingham Daily Mail.

Which will be good news for Mr. Gordon Craig.

GRUB STREET GOSSIP.

(By our Special Parasitic Penman.)

How I Got There and Back is the title of a new story of adventurous exploration which Messrs. Jones, Younger announce for immediate publication. The author, Mr. J. Minch Howson, whose text has been revised by the publishers, has had some astonishing experiences as a bonzo-hunter in the Aruwhimi forest. On one occasion he was rescued by a mad elephant from the jaws of an okapi, into which he had inadvertently fallen while flying from a gorilla. During his residence among the pygmies Mr. Howson became such an adept with the long blow-pipe that they offered him the headship of the tribe; but, as this involved the adoption of anthropophagous habits, he was reluctantly obliged to decline the honour.

Mr. Bamborough, the famous violinist, who recently changed his name by deed poll from Bamberger, has compiled a further volume of reminiscences based on his experiences as a travelling virtuoso in all four hemispheres. Some of these have already been made public in the Press, but in a condensed form. He now tells us for the first time in full detail his astounding adventures in New Guinea, where he was captured and partially eaten by cannibals, and his awful ordeal in the Never-Never Land, when he was attacked simultaneously by an emu and a wallaby, and conquered them both by the strains of his violin. The volume, which will be published by the House of Pougher and Kleimer, is profusely illustrated with portraits of Mr. Bamborough at various stages of his career, before and after the execution of the deed poll; of Mrs. Bamborough and their three gifted children, Wotan, Salome and Isolde Bamborough; and of her father, Sir Pompey Boldero, F.R.G.S., formerly Attorney-General of Pitcairn Island. It is further enriched with a number of letters in fac-simile from the Begum of Bhopal, General Huerta, the Lord Chief Justice, Madame Humbert, Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, Mr. Clement Shorter, Mrs. Alec Tweedie and the late King Theebaw of Burmah.

Messrs. Vigo announce the speedy publication of a volume of reminiscences from the pen of Count Lio Rotsac, the famous Bohemian revolutionary. In it special interest attaches to the long and desperate struggle between the Count and his rival, Baron Aracsac, which ended in the supersession of the latter and his confinement in the gloomy fortress prison of Niola Stelbat.

Miss Poppy McLurkin, the composer of that delightful song Peter Popinjay, of which over a quarter of a million copies have been sold or given away, has expanded the four verses of her lyric into a full-length novel, which Messrs. Gulliver will publish under the same title. Miss McLurkin, who is still on the sunny side of thirty, is one of the few female performers on the bagpipes in the literary profession.

New novelists are always welcome if only for the titles of their books, for, after all, perusal of their contents is not compulsory. In this category may be included Telepathic Theodora, by Beryl Smuts; The Rottenest Story in the World, by Dermot Stuggy; and In the Doldrums, by Wally Gogg.

HOW TO TAKE YOUR PART IN A DIALOGUE.

"Why, Mrs. Codlins, 'ow are you, 'ow are you? I 'aven't seen you to speak to for ages."

"No, Mrs. Whidden; no more 'aven't I you, neither."

The Latest Cinema Poster.

"Amazing Realistic Drama, featuring Big Game Hunting.

1500 feet—Between Man and Beast."

This is not realistic enough for us.

Seen on an Islington baker's shop:—

"Current Bread."

A marked improvement on the stale back-numbers supplied by some bakers.

"We understand that Prince William of Wied intends to proclaim himself King of Albania as soon as certain technical difficulties have been overcome."—Times.

Unfortunately there are several thousand "technical difficulties"—all well-armed.

THE OBVIOUS.

Celia had been calling on a newly-married friend of hers. They had been school-girls together; they had looked over the same Algebra book (or whatever it was that Celia learnt at school—I have never been quite certain); they had done their calisthenics side by side; they had compared picture-postcards of Lewis Waller. Ah me! the fairy princes they had imagined together in those days ... and here am I, and somewhere in the City (I believe he is a stockbroker) is Ermyntrude's husband, and we play our golf on Saturday afternoons, and complain of our dinners, and—— Well, anyhow, they were both married, and Celia had been calling on Ermyntrude.

"I hope you did all the right things," I said. "Asked to see the wedding-ring, and admired the charming little house, and gave a few hints on the proper way to manage a husband."

"Rather," said Celia. "But it did seem funny, because she used to be older than me at school."

"Isn't she still?"

"Oh, no! I'm ever so much older now.... Talking about wedding-rings," she went on, as she twisted her own round and round, "she's got all sorts of things written inside hers—the date and their initials and I don't know what else."

"There can't be much else—unless perhaps she has a very large finger."

"Well, I haven't got anything in mine," said Celia mournfully. She took off the offending ring and gave it to me.

On the day when I first put the ring on her finger, Celia swore an oath that nothing but death, extreme poverty or brigands should ever remove it. I swore too. Unfortunately it fell off in the course of the afternoon, which seemed to break the spell somehow. So now it goes off and on just like any other ring. I took it from her and looked inside.

"There are all sorts of things here too," I said. "Really, you don't seem to have read your wedding-ring at all. Or, anyhow, you've been skipping."

"There's nothing," said Celia in the same mournful voice. "I do think you might have put something,"'

I went and sat on the arm of her chair and held the ring up.

"You're an ungrateful wife," I said, "after all the trouble I took. Now look there," and I pointed with a pencil, "what's the first thing you see?"

"Twenty-two. That's only the——"

"That was your age when you married me. I had it put in at enormous expense. If you had been eighteen, the man said, or—or nine, it would have come much