r in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer
among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur
photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy
cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up
is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to
specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness
not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play
_Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.

But I am digressing. Where was I? Oh yes, we were discussing that
great Persian, Allirap Asras. Those authorities who think that he was
a predecessor of BAHRAM, the hunter, are wrong, for there was never
any Persian of the name at all. I am sorry to have deceived you, but
you must blame not me but a certain domestic remedy. If one bright
cart, drawn by a mettled steed and dispensing this medicinal beverage
at a penny a glass, will insist upon being outside Westminster Abbey
and another at the top of Cockspur Street every working day of the
week for ever and ever, how can one help sooner or later spelling its
staple product backwards and embroidering a little on the result?

But what I want to know is--who drinks sarsaparilla, anyway?

* * * * *

[Illustration: _Vague Tommy (writing letter)._ "WOT DAY IS IT?"

_Chorus._ "THE FOURTEENTH."

_Tommy._ "WOT MONTH?"

_Chorus._ "OCTOBER."

_Tommy._ "WOT YEAR?"]

* * * * *

"What fine fellows we might have been had we lived in those bygone
times. We too, perhaps, would have influenced history and our
names might have been inscribed in the book of immorality."--_New
Ireland._

We understand now why they call it Sin-Fain.

* * * * *

[Illustration: LAMENTABLE LARCENY IN A BOARDING-HOUSE.]

* * * * *

A DECLARATION OF WAR.

This is the yarn that M'Larty told by the brazier fire,
Where over the mud-filled trenches the star shells blaze and expire--
A yarn he swore was a true one; but Mac was an awful liar:--

"'Way up in the wild North Country, a couple of years ago
I hauled Hank out of a snowdrift--it was maybe thirty 'below,'
And I packed him along to my shanty and I took and thawed him with snow.

"He was stiff as a cold-store bullock, I might have left him for dead,
But I packed him along, as I'v