o as the Germans do and eat always;
(_with emphasis_) I do.

MARGOT (_scathingly_). I wonder if you are aware that I am English?

BISMARCK (_muttering something I could not catch about England lying
crushed at his feet_). But you are beautiful too! Some day you will be
a countrywoman of mine.

MARGOT. How?

BISMARCK. Because we shall make war on England and conquer it, and it
will then be our own and all of you will be our people and our slaves.
At least we should conquer it if----

MARGOT. If what?

BISMARCK. If it were not for a young man who will then be Prime
Minister. It is of him we are afraid.

MARGOT. What is his name?

BISMARCK. ASQUITH.

Could prescience further go? BISMARCK then left me with another
ungainly effort at French: _"Au revoir, Mademoiselle."_ But we never
met again.

=Disraeli's Last Days.=

I was with DISRAELI (who was one of the few men who did not propose to
me) not long before the end, and he gave me many confidences, although
he knew all about my friendship with GLADSTONE. But then I have always
chosen my friends impartially from all the camps. My exact memory
enables me to repeat my last conversation with DIZZY word for word:--

MARGOT. You look tired. Shall I dance for you?

(_Continued on page 104_).

* * * * *

[Illustration: THE REAL MUSIC.

JOHN BULL. "I WISH THEY'D LET ME HEAR THE LADY."]

* * * * *

[Illustration: _The Wife (bitterly)._ "YES, IT MAKES A NICE OUTIN' FOR
ME, DON'T IT--SETTIN' IN THE RAIN ALL DAY GUARDIN' A TIN O' WORMS?"]

* * * * *

DIZZY. No, no.

MARGOT _(brightly_). Let us be sensible and talk frankly about your
approaching death. Have you any views as to your biography?

DIZZY. Need there be one?

MARGOT. Of course.

DIZZY (_earnestly_). Would you write it? You would be so discreet.

I had to refuse, but I am sure I could have made a more amusing job of
it than MR. BUCKLE has done, in spite of the love-letters. What a pity
they didn't entrust it to my dear EDMUND GOSSE!

=A Browning Poem.=

Here is a little poem that BROWNING wrote for me on hearing me say
that when we were girls "we did not know the meaning of the word
'fast'":--

We all of us worship our Margot,
She's such a determined _escargot_.

=Talks with the Dead.=

The great NAPOLEON had died many years before I was born; and how
unjust it is that the lives of really i