er dress. The Lady
Mayoress read on; there appeared to be very little in the particular
paper she was perusing that interested her, so refolding it carefully
the Lady Mayoress selected another morning paper, and opening it,
smiled as she read in big print, "Audacious attack by Mr. Learned Bore."

"Ah!" commented the Lady Mayoress, "he certainly is a particularly
audacious, as well as being a very naughty man, who makes fun of
everything and everybody, but at least his articles and letters are
always amusing." Thereupon the smiling lady gently stirred her coffee,
folded the newspaper to the required place, and proceeded to enjoy Mr.
Learned Bore's contribution to the morning journalism.

Suddenly the little silver coffee spoon dropped from the Lady
Mayoress's hand, and she sat bolt upright in her chair as if she had
received a galvanic shock. At this inauspicious moment the Lord Mayor
made his appearance, very jovial and full of happy morning greetings,
mingled with pleasant apologies for being late.

Something in the expression of his wife's face, however, gave the
worthy Lord Mayor an uncomfortable, apprehensive sort of feeling, the
cheerful flow of his morning remarks died away in little sentences, as
if the promise of their young life had been cut short.

The Lord Mayor chipped an egg nervously, and made a brave show of
gulping his coffee.

"Well, Mum, you seem very interested in the morning paper," observed
Sir Simon, with an assumption of hearty cheerfulness he was far from
feeling.

Something in the expression of Mum's face seemed to baffle all
analysis, as she continued to read without vouchsafing any answer.
After a terrible pause the Lady Mayoress refolded the paper, and laying
it upon the table, regarded her husband steadfastly with flushed face
and sparkling eyes.

Sir Simon's heart seemed to sink into his boots.

"I thought you distinctly told me, Simon, when you returned, at what I
can only describe as a most eccentric hour in the early morning, that
you had been visiting an old friend."

"Quite right, my dear, I assure you I had. I'm right upon that point
at any rate."

"You told me you had not been to a Pantomime," continued his wife,
heedless of the interruption.

"No, my dear,--no Pantomime, I assure you; I never entered a theatre or
a building of any such description."

"Apparently not," came the icy reply; "the Pantomime in this case
appears to have taken place in the open air. Re