completely lost
his shyness and became quite one of the family, singing in the choir on
Sundays and contributing to the larder during the week by his skill as a
fisherman. He lived with us until a few months ago, when he unhappily
died through inadvertently swallowing a cork. He is buried in our
garden, and on the stone are inscribed the following lines composed by
my mother--

Here lies Beethoven in his grave,
No earthly power could him save;
An envious cork blocked up his breath
And that was how he met his death.

MRS. PULLAR LEGGE.

_Marine Villas, Brondesbury._

CAT OR CHAMELEON?

Piffles was a splendid pink Circassian--perfect in colour and shape,
with glorious topaz eyes. But the extraordinary thing about him was a
gift that he had for changing his colour. Thus my uncle, an old
Anglo-Indian who always drank a bottle of Madeira after dinner, declared
that from 10 P.M. onwards Piffles invariably seemed to him to be a
bright crimson with green spots. Another peculiarity of Piffles was that
he always followed the guns out shooting, and used to retrieve birds
from the most difficult places. He practically ruled the household, took
the boys back to school after the holidays, attended family prayers, and
was learning to play the pianola when he was unfortunately killed by a
crocodile which escaped from a travelling menagerie.

(MISS) IVY WAGG.

_The Oaks, Long Boughton._

A FELINE PRACTICAL JOKER.

Last year I had a cat who, whenever she was offended, used to go to my
bedroom and throw various articles out of the window. I was constantly
finding purses, powder-puffs, artificial teeth, safety-pins, hymn-books,
etc., on the lawn, and never suspected the culprit until she was caught
in the act.

She also had a habit of sitting on the top of the front door and
dropping golf-balls on the head of the postman, whom, either for his red
hair or his Radical opinions, she disliked bitterly.

She would eat and drink anything, including ice-pudding and green
Chartreuse, and was always peculiarly cheerful on Thursday evenings,
when _The Scottish Meekly_ reaches our house.

D. MONK HOWSON.

_Steep Bank, Grogport._

* * * * *

Illustration: "BETTER 'AVE ONE AND READ ABOUT IT NOW, SIR; IT MIGHT BE
CONTERADICTED IN THE MORNING."

* * * * *

THE SCRATCH HANDICAP.

"What do you do?" a