ith a white shirt. Kidger saw the truth of this at once; he had
receptivity if not intuition. After a trying interview with his banker he
bought several blue shirts.

Then the General who contributes "Sartorial Tips" to several leading
journals remarked that, since all kinds of people were wearing coloured
shirts and collars, the man who desired to retain or achieve that touch of
distinction which means so much must at any cost wear white ones; and that,
further, Society was frowning on the slovenly unstarched neck-wear of the
relapsed temporary gentleman.

Kidger began to show signs of neurasthenia. His stock of pre-war collars
was exhausted, or rather eroded. His faithful aunt, however, remembered a
neglected birthday and gave him a dozen new ones, of the up-and-down model,
to save Kidger's delicate neck. These, with his nice butterfly-bow ties,
looked really well, and Kidger recovered his old form.

I warned him to keep to the police and Parliamentary news in the papers,
but his eyes would wander. The result was that he learned from "Brigade
Major" that the wearing of a butterfly bow with a double event collar was a
solecism past forgiveness or repentance, and that its smart appearance was
the deadly bait which caught the miserable bumpkin who ignorantly fancied
that a man could dress by the light of nature.

Kidger collapsed. His aunt volunteered to sell her annuity and help him,
but the innate nobility of the man forbade him to accept this useless
sacrifice.

His medical attendant tells me that he is now allowed to read only poetry,
wearing a sweater meanwhile, and that arrangements are being made for him
to join a sheep-farming cousin in Patagonia, where collars are despised and
newspapers invariably out of date.

W.K.H.

* * * * *

[Illustration: _She._ "I TOLD 'EE TO GREASE THE WHEELS AFORE WE COME OUT."

_He._ "IT BE AS MUCH AS I CAN DO TO KEEP UP WITH IT AS 'TIS."]

* * * * *

A SUPERFLUOUS ANNOUNCEMENT.

"The Government have found it impossible to proceed with the Government
of Ireland before the Autumn Session."--_Daily Paper._

* * * * *

"Clerk (Junior) Wanted for Spinners' Office, age 1617.--_Yorkshire
Paper._

"Junior," we take it, is a misprint.

* * * * *

EDWARD AND THE B.O.F.

It was the first Sunday of the season, and the select end of