of the social reformer and the juror were completed, the
total of counsels' guineas must have been well on the other side of a
thousand.

Everybody had now forgotten that there ever was a stack involved and no
one would have recollected that the Insurance Company had had anything
to do with it, had not the social reformer, in the course of his public
examination, ingenuously attributed his financial downfall to the
original misbehaviour of that company in disbelieving their
policy-holders when they declared that they were not incendiaries.
Thereupon, after a number of applications by counsel to a number of
courts, the Insurance Company got itself inserted in the Bankruptcy
proceedings, but not before an enterprising newspaper had taken upon
itself to assert that there was an element of truth in the contention of
the social reformer. And then it was that the Contempt proceedings
began, and were fought strenuously stage by stage, each side briefing
more and more counsel as they went along, until at last, when the case
came before their Lordships, there were more barristers involved than
could be seated in the limited accommodation provided at the bar of
their Lordships' House.

To calculate even roughly the final total of counsels' fees was no easy
sum to be done on the fingers. After wrestling with it a little, the
tramp leant back and puffed hard at his pipe--so hard that the sparks
flew and the smoke became thick around him--so thick that "Bless my
soul," said the tramp, rising hurriedly, "there's another stack I've
been and gone and set afire!"

A tramp, a mere tramp going about the country and setting fire to
stacks, is not even he to be reckoned with in the order of things?

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Professor (to novice during his first lesson)._ "WHAT ON
EARTH ARE YER DOIN' OVER THERE? YER KNOW YOU'LL 'AVE TO COME AN' DO A
BIT OF IN-FIGHTING IF YER WANT TO FIND MY WEAK SPOT."]

* * * * *

APRIL FOR THE EPICURE.

(_An effort to emulate the gustatory enthusiasm of "The P.M.G."_)

April, though regarded as somewhat suspect by meteorologists, appeals
with a peculiar force to gastronomic experts, owing to the number of
delicacies associated with the month.

FISH.

Oysters, like the poor, are still with us, but only till the end of the
month; hence, ostreophils should make the most of their opportunities.
But, besides the "king of crustaceans,