ay?

_Culch. (calmly)._ If you insist on knowing, she is the lady to whom Mr.
PODBURY has every prospect of being engaged. I hope your mind is at ease
_now_?

_Miss T._ Well, I expect my mind would have stood the strain as it was--so
it's Mr. PODBURY who's her admirer? See here, you're going to introduce me
to that girl right away. It's real romantic, and I'm perfectly dying to
make her acquaintance!

_Culch._ Hum--well. She is--er--_peculiar_, don't you know, and I rather
doubt whether you will have much in common.

_Miss T._ Well, if you don't introduce me, I shall introduce myself, that's
all.

_Culch._ By all means. (_To himself._) Not if _I_ can prevent it, though!

* * * * *

[Illustration: "I knock off quite a number of these while I'm abroad like
this."]

* * * * *

[Illustration]

* * * * *

ONLY FANCY!

We are in a position to give an emphatic contradiction to the rumour, put
forward with much assurance, that the King of SPAIN has entered upon
negotiations of a matrimonial character with reference to the grand-niece
of the Crown Prince of ROUMANIA. No one familiar with His Majesty's views
on the Triple Alliance, and his openly-expressed opinion with respect to
the occupation of Egypt, could for one moment give credence to a report so
intrinsically absurd.

* * * * *

RYMUND has been imposed upon by one of his young men. Our friend, whose
susceptibility to the wiles of impostors, though an amiable weakness,
somewhat militates against his perfect success in life, has printed a
paragraph announcing that the QUEEN will leave Balmoral on Friday the 20th
inst. at half-past two in the afternoon, Her MAJESTY reaching Windsor at
nine o'clock on Saturday morning. _It is twenty-five minutes to three_ when
the Royal train will start, and Windsor will not be reached till five
minutes after the hour mentioned by RYMUND. It is crass inaccuracies like
these that lower the weekly press in the estimation of an observant public.

* * * * *

HENED has been at it again. Two months ago we published the intelligence
that the Princess FREDERICA of Hanover would pass the winter months at
Biarritz, a well-known watering-place almost on the border-land between
Spain and France. This news was received with gratifying tokens of interest
at every Court of Europe, and