onspire
To shun the said demesne and curse that messuage.

And spiders on the broken panes shall sit,
And the grey rats shall scuttle in the basement,
Until the Borough Council purchase it
And cleanse and decorate, and lastly fit
A fair blue _plaque_ above the study casement,

Saying, "Here lived a while and wove his spell,
Eusebius Binks the bard, the unforgotten;
The house is mentioned in his 'Lines to Hell,'
Also the agents, Messrs. Azazel,
And the then drains which, so he sang, were rotten."

EVOE.

* * * * *

_The Daily Telegraph_ says of the Portsmouth Corporation telephone
system:--

"At present there are 1,899 subscribers and 2,528 distinct
telephones."

Why doesn't the Post Office experiment with this new sort of
telephone.

* * * * *

"Yet it is necessary to state emphatically, although no representative
of a daily newspaper seems to have been under this impression, that not
for twenty years have I been so bored."

_C.K.S. in "The Sphere," on the 'Edwin Drood' trial_.

But how are the poor reporters to know so much about C.K.S. as that?

* * * * *

[Illustration: COULEUR D'ORANGE.

MR. ASQUITH (_on the Riviera_). "LUCKY FOR ME THERE AREN'T ANY
'CONVERSATIONS' HERE--I MIGHT AGREE TO ALMOST ANYTHING."]

* * * * *

THE POST OFFICE AGAIN.

DEAR UNCLE,--Its your birthday to-day. I sent you some nice pairs of
hankerchifs because its your birthday. They for your nose. Its funny
our birthdays being so close. And now no more from your loving neice

NANCY.

MY DEAR NANCY,--Thank you very much indeed for the nice
pocket-handkerchiefs. I am very pleased with them. Nobody has ever
troubled to give me handkerchiefs before with pretty flowers worked in
the corners. I have been wearing them to-day, or rather one of them.
They are so nice that I really meant to have kept them specially for
parties and things like that, but, as I was obliged to leave home in
a great hurry this morning, and someone had hidden my everyday
handkerchiefs, I took one of yours.

Such a funny thing has happened. I sent you for your birthday a pretty
card with birds on it, and somehow or other it got taken in quite a
different direction, and was returned to me this morning by--whom do
you think? Auntie Maud, all the way away in Ireland. But we mustn't