ill soon be ready, when there should be no further cause for
complaint about the rapacity of some of the larger carnivora owned by
certain ladies of the chorus.

The recent fashion of having one's pet emu coloured to match one's frock
is dying out, and armadilloes with gilded trotters are becoming the
vogue.

* * * * *

COMPULSION.

"Very well," said the lady of the house, "don't let's do it. Nobody can
force us to go to the seaside if we don't want to."

"It's too late," I said, "to begin to agree with me now."

"It's never too late to realise how reasonable you are."

"Yes, it is. The agreement is signed; half the rent has been paid;
Sandstone House has got us by the legs, and, whether we like it or not,
we've got to go there next week."

"We might try the effect of a death-bed repentance."

"No," I said, "we're dead already. We died when the blessed agreement
was signed."

"Well, then, let's write and say our aunt from British Columbia is about
to arrive here unexpectedly on a visit to us, and that sand and seaweed
and prawns and star-fish are simply death to her. We can wind up with a
strong appeal to the landlord's better nature. No true landlord can wish
to be responsible for the death of anybody's British Columbian aunt."

"You're quite wrong," I said. "Landlords just revel in that kind of
thing. Besides, he will not believe in our aunt. He will say that she is
too thin."

"But the aunt I'm thinking of is stout and wheezy. She is a widow; her
name is Aunt Wilhelmina; except ourselves there's nobody in the world
left for her to cling to. No marine landlord can dare to separate us
from Aunt Wilhelmina."

"It's no good," I said. "I'll admit that your Aunt Wilhelmina----"

"She's only mine by marriage, you know; but I love her like a daughter."

"I admit," I continued, "that Aunt-by-marriage Wilhelmina may some day
be useful to us. We will put her by for another occasion. But she can't
help us now."

"Well, go ahead yourself and suggest something, then."

"I could suggest a thousand things. Suppose we just pay the rest of the
rent and don't go."

"The man," she said with conviction, "is mad."

"I thought you'd say that, and I know you'd say the same about any other
suggestion of mine, so I shan't make any more."

"You mustn't be sulky," she said.

"I never am. I'm reasonable, but, as usual, you'll realise it too late.
Besides," I added, "it's you who've brou