te 4._

_Mr. W._ Goal in view!
Running true!

_Miss A._ Make it faster!
Spur your caster!

_Fytte 5._

_Mr. W._ Fairly done!

_Miss A._ Match is won!

[_They dismount. Pause._

_Mr. W._ What! Confess!

_Miss A._ Well then--yes!

* * * * *

Illustration: _Motor Fiend._ "Why don't you get out of the way?"

_Victim._ "_What!_ Are you coming back?"

* * * * *

MOTOROBESITY

(_A Forecast_)

In the spring of 1913 St. John Skinner came back from Africa, after
spending nine or ten years somewhere near the Zambesi. He travelled up
to Waterloo by the electric train, and the three very stout men who were
in the same first-class compartment seemed to look at him with surprise.
On arriving at his hotel he pushed his way through a crowd of fat
persons in the hall. Then he changed his clothes, and went round to his
Club to dine.

The dining-room was filled with members of extraordinary obesity, all
eating heartily. In the fat features of one of them he thought he
recognised a once familiar face. "Round," said he, "how are you?"

The stout man stopped eating, and gazed at him anxiously. "Why," he
murmured, after a while, in the soft voice that comes from folds of fat,
"it must be Skinner. My dear fellow, what is the matter with you? Have
you had a fever?"

"I'm all right," answered the other; "what makes you think I've been
ill?"

"Ill, man!" said Round, "why you've wasted away to nothing. You're a
perfect skeleton."

"If it's a question of bulk," remarked Skinner, "I'm much more
surprised. You've grown so stout, every fellow in the Club seems so
stout, everyone I've seen is as fat as--as--as you are."

"Heavens!" exclaimed Round, "you don't mean to say I've been putting on
more flesh? I'm the light weight of the Club. I only weigh sixteen
stone. No, no, you're chaffing, or you judge by your own figure."

"Not a bit," said the other; "you and I used to weigh about the same.
What on earth has happened to you all?"

"Well," said Round, "perhaps you're right. It's very much what the
doctors say. It's the fashionable complaint, motorobesity. Sit down, and
dine with me, and I'll tell you what the idea is. You see, it's like
this. For ten years or so everybody who could afford a motor of some
sort has had one. We've all had one. Not to have a motor has been simply
ridiculous, if not disreputable. So everyb