shrewish wife;
The amorous _Guppy_, who poor _Esther_ chivvied;
Tempestuous _Boythorn_, revelling in strife;
_Skimpole_, the honey-tongued artistic cadger;
And that tremendous woman, _Mrs. Badger_.

No wonder then that, when we seek awhile
Relief and respite from War's strident chorus,
Few books more swiftly charm us to a smile,
Few books more truly hearten and restore us
Than his, whose art was potent to beguile
Thousands of weary souls who came before us--
No wonder, when the Huns, who ban our fiction,
Were fain to free him from their malediction.

* * * * *

"WHAT PEOPLE SAY.

"One of the collectors for the ---- Hospital Sunday fund seems to
have got more than either he or the committee desired.

"On approaching a house he was received by a dog which persisted in
leaving its compliments on one of his legs.

"Happily the injury, though treated by a chemist, was not serious."
--_Provincial Paper_.

People ought not to say these things about chemists.

* * * * *

"ESCAPED GERMAN FLYING MEN.

"One of the men is Lieut. Josef Flink. He has a gunshot wound in
the palm of the left hand. The second is Orbum Alexander von
Schutz, with side-whispers. Both speak very little English."
--_Southern Echo_.

But VON SCHUTZ's sotto-voce rendering of the "Hymn of Hate" is
immense.

* * * * *

AT THE PLAY.

"THE INVISIBLE FOE."

MR. H.B. IRVING has elected to play villain in a new mystery play by
Mr. WALTER HACKETT. Essential elements of the business as follows:
Obstinate old millstone of a shipbuilder, _Bransby_, who simply will
not give up shipbuilding for aeroplane making (and no wonder in these
days!); nephew _Stephen_, with an unwholesome hankering after power
and a complete inability to see the obvious; nephew _Hugh_, lieutenant
lately gazetted, with much more wholesome and intelligent hankering
after _Helen Bransby_; Clerk, mouldy, faithful, one who discovers
deficit in the West African ledger to the extent of ten thousand
pounds.

The false entries are in the hand of _Hugh_, but _Stephen's_ sinister
eye and shocking suit of solemn black promptly give him away to the
audience, while with a gorgeous fatuity he gives himself away to
his uncle by writing out his brother's resignation of the King's
Commission (in itself an odd thing to