-my trouser pocket.

For AUSTEN (such is rumour's tale),
Faced with a rude financial deadlock,
Is bent on mulcting every male
Who shirks the privilege of wedlock;
With such a hurt Time cannot deal,
And Lethe here affords no tonic;
Nothing but Death can hope to heal
What looks as if it must be chronic.

And yet a solace soothes my brow,
Making my air a shade less gloomy:--
Six shillings in the pound is now
The figure out of which they do me;
But, were we man and wife to-day
(So close the Treasury loves to link 'em),
A grievous super-tax they'd lay
On our coagulated income.

I dare not even try to guess
What is the charge for being single;
It may be more, it may be less
Than if we twain had chanced to mingle;
But though with thrice as heavy a fist
They fall on bachelors to bleed 'em
Yet, when I think of what I've missed,
I'll gladly pay the cost of Freedom.

O.S.

* * * * *

TEA-CUP TWADDLE.

BY THEODOSIA.

_(With acknowledgments to the kind of paper that wallows in this kind
of thing.)_

Fringe and tassels, tassels and fringe! That is the burden of what I
have to say to you this time; for indeed and indeed this is to be a
fringe-and-tassel season, and you must cover yourself all over with
fringe and the rest of yourself with tassels, or else "to a nunnery
go."

_A propos_, I popped into the dressing-room of the ever-delightful
Miss Frillie Farrington at the Incandescent the other evening and had
the joy of seeing her put on that sweet ickle f'ock she wears for the
Jazz supper scene in _Oh My!_ All the materials used are three yards
of embroidered chiffon, six yards of tinsel fringe and six dozen
tinsel tassels; and anything so completely swish and so immensely
tra-la-la you simply never!

The Armistice Smile is quickly giving way to the Peace Face. For the
Peace Face the eyes should look calmly straight before one, and the
lips should be gently closed, but not set in a hard line. Everybody
who is anybody is busy practising the Peace Face, as it is sure to be
wanted some day.

Was in a big squeeze the other night coining out of the Opera and
overheard Lady Mary Clarges remark to her pretty daughter, "What a
crush!" Lady Mary has a big reputation for always saying the right
thing.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I tell you that spotted
stockings have been seen walking in the park!