plaster the lamb's nose with spoonfuls of sugar and then lick off the sugar with one's tongue. At least that is the way Priscilla does it.]

I (reprovingly from the breakfast-table.) What a funny way to give your lamb tea, Priscilla.

She. My lamb says he likes having his tea like this. (A longish pause.) Please will you draw me a picsher?

I. What kind of a picture?

She. A picsher of a house.

I. What kind of a house?

She (in one long breath). A purple house with a yellow roof and blue curtains and a green door and rose-trees with red roses and hollyhocks and a dear little pussy-cat and a motor-car coming up the drive.

[This is executed in coloured crayons with a rapidity born of hunger and long practice, and passed to the Hanging Committee for inspection.]

She (examining it critically). Ho! that isn't a door.

I. Yes, it is, Priscilla. It's a very nice door.

She. It isn't a door. It hasn't any knocker.

[After all, when is a door not a door? I finish the joinery job and carry on with my bacon.]

She (suddenly). There isn't any sun.

[I sketch in the regulation pattern of circular sun, with eyes, a nose and a smile complete.]

She. That isn't a sun. It hasn't any hair.

I. The sun doesn't have any hair, Priscilla.

She (decisively). Nurse has hair.

[This really seems unanswerable. Having amended Phœbus Apollo I start in with my marmalade. After a lapse of a few minutes a low hammering is heard from somewhere on the floor at the far side of the table.]

I. Whatever are you doing, Priscilla?

She. Sooing my horse.

[She is discovered beating the wheels of a grey wooden flat-backed animal on a stand with a hammer procured from heaven alone knows where.]

I. Well, don't hit him on the wheels, anyhow. (A pause, subdued noises and a sigh.) What are you doing now, Priscilla?

She. Sooing him on his back.

I. Doesn't that hurt him?

She. It hurts him very much, but he doesn't say anything.

[I come round to give veterinary advice.]

I. Don't you love your horse, Priscilla?

She. Yes, he's my friendly horse.

I. Well, don't bang him about like that; all the paint's coming off him.

[The carpet is in fact bestrewn with small flakes of grey paint from the unhappy creature's flanks.]

She (derisively). Ho! that isn't paint. That's snorts.

I (helplessly). Whatever do you mean?

She. That's snorts. Snorts from his mouf. White snorts.

I. But why is your horse snorting from his mouth, Priscilla?

She. He's snorting from his mouf because I'm sooing him on his back.

Well, there you are, you know; what is one going to do about it? There is a sort of specious plausibility about these replies after all; I am no farrier, but I should think it quite likely that if you shoed a cart-horse long enough on the back with a large enough hammer he would snort white snorts from his mouth; and it's no use telling the girl that she can't jump from realism to romance in that disingenuous manner. Besides she might start hammering the wheels again. Or else she would say that her horse said he was snorting, and who am I to contradict a British horse? I used to consider myself pretty good at what are called back-answers and I still believe that with a little practice I could hold my own in Whitechapel or the House of Commons, but there are subtle transitions about Priscilla's method of argument with which only a Prime Minister could cope. It carries too many guns for me. It cramps my style.

V.

A CORNISH COTTAGE.

"There was one summer when he lived by himself in a lonely old houseboat on the Thames, from which he paddled himself ashore every morning in a top-hat.—Daily Paper.

The drawback to this kind of craft is that it only accommodates a single skull.

MANNERS AND MODES.

MR. GILEAD P. BLOGGS (U.S.A.) ORDERS FOR HIS NEW DINING-ROOM AT PITTSBURGH A COLOSSAL PICTURE REPRESENTING A HOSPITABLE SIDEBOARD, TO KEEP ALIVE HIS MEMORIES OF "WET" AMERICA.

Accused (just dismissed). "Many thanks! What should I have done without you?"

Counsel. "Oh, about six months."

LITTLE BITS OF LONDON.

Billingsgate.

In order to see Billingsgate properly in action it is necessary to get up at half-past four and travel on the Underground by the first train East, which is an adventure in itself. The first train East goes at three minutes past five, and there are large numbers of people who travel in it every day; by Charing Cross it is almost crowded. It is full of Bolshevists; and I do not wonder. One sits with one's feet up in a first-class carriage, clutching a nice cheap workman's ticket and trying hard to look as if, like the Bolshevists, one did this every day.

On arriving at the Monument Station one walks briskly past the seductive announcement that "The Monument is Now Open," and plunges into a world of fish. I have never been able to understand why fish is so funny. On the comic stage a casual reference to fish is almost certain to provoke a shout of laughter; in practice, and especially in the mass, it is not so funny; it is like the Government, an inexhaustible source of humour at a distance, and in the flesh extraordinarily dull.

Over the small streets which surround the market hangs a heavy pall of fishy vapour. The streets are full of carts; the carts are full of fish. The houses in the