hoping thus to damp down my conversational powers. I, hoping to stimulate them, helped myself.

"Well, what do you want now, my boy?" he asked reluctantly, noting my unsatisfied air.

"I'll tell you what I should like, Sir," said I, "and that's a father-in-law. Would you care for the job?"

Not, I think, entirely with a view to what he himself was likely to get out of this suggestion, he asked me outright what I was worth. "I don't think," he suggested, "that I could very well let my Phyllis marry anyone with less than five hundred a year, eh?"

I got out paper and pencil, puckered up my brow, and worked out a sum. "I am happy to announce," I said eventually, "that we may put my income on the other side of that figure."

To show my bona fides, I set out my sum:—

These, however, were not the figures I quoted to Charles Dugmore, A.T.

There was no port about him, and still less did he wait for me to introduce the subject. He sent me a sharp note and gave me twenty-one days to answer, in default of which he said he would have the law on me. Still, there is a certain rough kindness even about your Assessor of Taxes; this one enclosed a slip of paper, which he hoped I wouldn't read, but which, when I did read it, suggested to me my middle course of safety. "Work out your income, on lines consistent with honesty, at less than £160, and you've won," it said. With the assistance of the advice it gave, I had no difficulty in doing this; thus:—

Ulster may fight and Mexico may be right; nevertheless these things are apt to be forgotten when conversation reverts, as it always does, to My Income.

The sordid subject came up again for discussion when Phyllis and I went to have a preliminary chat with the house-agent.

"You have spoken with eloquence and conviction about reception-rooms, out-houses, railway stations, golf courses, and h. and c.," said I, "but sooner or later some one must rise and say a few pointed words about Rent."

"That all depends on what you are prepared to give," he replied. "The rough-and-ready rule is to fix one's rent at a tenth of one's income."

"Yes, but which income?" I asked. "For I have two incomes and I can't afford a separate house for each."

He had no formula for my case and I left him a little later under a cloud of suspicion. Your house-agent is an ill judge of the subtler forms of humour.

THE COALITION TOUCH.

Preparing To receive By-election Cavalry.

Front Rank (to Rear Rank). "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE ENEMY MAY THINK OF YOUR PIKE, BUT PERSONALLY IT INCOMMODES ME!"

"Very sorry, Sir; But I'm afraid I've made a small cut on your chin."

"Ah! It must have been a sharp patch on the razor."

THE COLONEL TALKS.

The great hunter and explorer received us with profound affability. Thinner he may be, but his terrible privations in the perilous back blocks of Brazil have left his dazzling bonzoline smile unharmed. Every one of the powerful two-and-thirty extended a separate welcome.

"Sit right down," he said.

We sat right down.

"Say, Colonel," we began in the vernacular, "tell us about the river. Some river, ain't it?"

"You are right, Sir," he replied. "It's a river. The Thames, according to your great statesman, Colonel Burns, is 'liquid history;' my river is——"

"According to Savage Landor," we interrupted, "'liquid mystery.'"

The explorer's face fell. "I will deal with him later," he said. "Meanwhile let me tell you, Sir, that this is no slouch of a river. It has all the necessary ingredients of a river. It has banks, and a current. There are fish in it. Boats and canoes can progress on its surface. Twenty-three times did I risk my valuable life in saving boats and canoes that had got adrift. It has rapids. Twenty-eight times did I nearly drown in negotiating them. It has some ugly snags. The ugliest I have called 'Wilson,' the next ugliest, 'Bryan.'"

He stopped for applause and we let him have it.

"It was a great discovery of yours," we said, after he had bowed several times.

"No, Sir," he replied, "let us get that right. It is not my discovery. It is the discovery of Colonel Rondor."

"Well, you keep it among the colonels anyway," we said.

"In America, Sir," replied the modern Columbus—"in G. O. C., by which I mean God's Own Country—we keep everything among the colonels. But to proceed—it is not my discovery. All that I did was to trace it to its source in order to put it on the map. That is my ambition—the crowning moment of my ex-officio life—to put this river on the map. It will mean a boom in South America at last. They are all out-of-date and new ones must be made."

"And what will you call the river?" I asked.

"I am not sure," he said. "Some want it to be known as the 'Roosevelt,' but that does not please me. The 'Rondor' would be better, or 'The Two Colonels.' Can you suggest anything?"

"Why not 'The Sixty-five'?" we said, "since you lost sixty-five pounds in your travels."

"Good," he said. "I will put the point to Kermet."

"And is that your only triumph," we asked—"the river?"

"Oh, no," he said. "There