el. After a
protracted interview a _via media_ was reached by which, while Mr.
Carnegie undertook to exclude Mr. Abel's works from his Free Libraries,
Mr. Abel agreed to withdraw his threat of coming to reside in
Sutherlandshire on the understanding that Mr. Jenery Hames contributed a
six-column appreciation of Mr. Abel's works to _The Times_, provided
that the demands of golf on the best pages of that journal permitted it.
Subsequently Mr. Carnegie entertained the Manx Volunteers at a sumptuous
_dejeuner_, at which Mr. Hames proposed the health of Mr. Abel and Mr.
Abel fell on the neck of Mr. Hames. No other casualties occurred to mar
the peaceful termination of what might have proved an international
catastrophe.

* * * * *

"Its author could no longer look forward with 3/8 his old hope
or confidence to a continued successful resistance to Home
Rule."

_Manchester Guardian._

"Half his old hope" a less meticulous speaker would have said.

* * * * *

"The defendants were ordered to pay the costs, but the Chairman
(Mr. T. J. Price) remarked that if such breeches were repeated
the magistrates would have to adopt sterner measures."--_South
Wales Daily News._

We hope this will be a warning to our nuts.

* * * * *

BLANCHE'S LETTERS.

Week-End-on-Sea.

_Park Lane._

Dearest Daphne,--I've been doing Easter with the Clackmannans and
helping them with an idea they're carrying out. There's a little coast
town on their Southshire property (Shrimpington it's been called up to
now), and they're turning it into a seaside place _that people can go
to_! _Isn't_ that dilly? Of course, our coasts quite _bristle_ with
seaside towns, but they're places people _can't_ go to because
_everybody_ goes there. And so the Clackmannans are going to supply a
long-felt want, as old-fashioned people say, and give us a _ville de
bains_ of our very _very_ own. Its name is to be changed from
Shrimpington to Week-End-on-Sea. It has no railway station, which, of
course, is a great merit; it's not to have any big blatant hotels or
pensions--nothing but charming bungalow-cottages; there'll be no pier,
no band, none of those banal winter-gardens and impossible pleasure
palaces that _ces autres_ delight in, and, _of course_, none of those
immensely fearful concert parties and pierrots. But we shall have a
troupe of