celebrated persons he has been mentioning, and he replies with something about them which doesn't seem to exactly correspond with my question; but once more—being in the happiest vein, and shining in a manner that positively astonishes myself, I let off another brilliant jest, which is received in precisely the same manner by my audience as were my previous conversational fireworks. I think to myself, "I am ingratiating myself with Sir Alec. This will be a first-rate thing for me and for several members of my family, as a man in Sir Alec's influential position," &c.

Sir Alec now starts another subject, and as I foresee that if he sticks to it, I have something which will cap everything, I at once question him as to something he has just uttered. He replies, but, as before, I am bothered by his reply, which seems to me utterly inconsequent. So I repeat my question. And he smiles, nods and says, "Well—yes—" doubtfully. But my question required quite a different sort of answer. It had been, "How many times did you say Lord Grangemore sneezed on that occasion?" To which it is evident that a doubtful "Well—um—yes," is not a satisfactory answer. So I repeat the question, whereupon he turns towards me confidentially and says, "No, I don't think so. It was her sister he married." I look at him inquiringly to see if this is his fun, but at that moment I catch a wink from Birley who is putting up his hand to his ear and intimating in the clearest possible pantomime for my private and particular benefit, that our entertaining friend Sir Alec McQuincey is uncommonly deaf!

Now I comprehend Birley's silence. Now I comprehend why Sir Alec goes on talking, and why he looks puzzled at any interruption, and why he could only smile when he got the cue, as it were, from his companion, and was made aware that there had been something said which required to be smiled at.

I relapse into silence. I accept an excellent cigar from Sir Alec, and I let him talk for the rest of the evening uninterruptedly, until he looks at his watch, says that nine-thirty is late enough for him, that he has enjoyed his evening with us amazingly, and goes off to bed.

"Agreeable old chap," says Birley, stretching out his legs, preparatory to taking a short stroll. "Seen a lot of life has old Alec. He's a capital Chairman at a Board-meeting. Just deaf enough when he doesn't want to hear any arguments. I let him talk on."

"So I see," I say, and we walk out to bid good-night to Mont Blanc.

"The Mons looks like a warrior taking his rest—his last rest," says Birley, gravely, giving me a subdued nudge. "Napoleon the Great, and his cocked hat, carved out of white stone. Ah!" and, meditatively we linger, and then walk slowly back to the Hotel.

"We'll take old Alec to his warm bath at Evian-les-Bains to-morrow," says Birley. "Good night." Then he pauses on the stairs, as with a wink full of fun, and last playful nudge, he says, "I suppose you'll let him have all the talk to himself, eh? Won't you? Ha! ha! I shall."

My friend Skurrie to whom his own Plan of Return, which I have accepted, is as the law of the Medes and Persians, says he will give me three days more for Geneva and Birley, and that then we must emphatically start homewards as he insists on Jane and myself seeing Heidelberg en route and every half hour of our time from Wednesday to Monday is so carefully adjusted that to miss one train will upset all the plans he has taken such pains and trouble to arrange for us. I am closeted with him for two hours, when he explains it all to me, gives me, so to speak, the key of the puzzle, insists on my verifying the items by Cook's Tourist Train-Book (an invaluable work), and then reducing it to writing. After this I am headachey, and exhausted.

[P.S.—Revising this, long after the event, I say, "Beware of Skurrie and his fixed plan of sight-seeing against time."]

GRASP YOUR THISTLE.

Light Puffs raised a Little Swell.

The Port Bow.

Mr. Punch, Sir,—I would like to ask you, slick out, if you reckon it was all fair and square with that there Thistle's keel. For to hear that interested parties in that race had gone down in a diving-bell the evening before and screwed themselves on to that yacht would not have surprised me. And, let me tell you had they done so, they would have considerably impeded her progress the following day. That Captain Barr was cute enough when he said, "he couldn't make out what had come to his ship." Take my word what had come to it was just that diving-bell, and I shouldn't mind calculating that the owner of the Volunteer was boss of the interested parties fixed up inside of it. You ask "can such things take place in the States?" Wal—I guess they just can. Muchly so, when there's money on it. As to the diving-bell advantage, I speak feelingly, as I have assisted over a twenty-mile course in one myself. We were on that occasion found out at the finish. But it was all straight. The umpire, whom we had previously squared, and who was above reproach, gave it in our favour. It's knowing these things, coupled with the fact that I backed the Thistle for two hundred dollars, that makes me just throw out these friendly hints to you, Sir, from,

The Other Side of the Atlantic.

A Point of Law.

(By a Pun-propounding Gladstonophobist.)

Butter for Ailesbury.—The Jockey Club's decision!

Reporters at the Reporters' Congress.—Scarcely Short-handed!

"HOME! SWEET HOME!" (ALAS!)

THE LAST (SIGNAL) MAN.

Verity in a Vision.

(With Apologies to the Shade of Campbell.)

"The effect of material progress, and of the growth of mechanical invention, is to place the lives and interests of an increasing number of people in the keeping of a single man. Responsibility becomes concentrated to a dangerous and a truly alarming degree."—Times.