* * * * *

"Portobello's dressing boxes for lady bathers are practically
ready. There are fifteen boxes at the Band Stand enclosure,
very much resembling ballot boxes in size, shape, and
material."--_Edinburgh Evening Dispatch_.

A happy thought to prepare the new voters for taking the plunge.

* * * * *

"The members of the Cabinet occupied specially reserved seats
in the choir and lectern, where also the Lord Mayor was
seated."--_Scotsman_.

A little hard on the eagle.

* * * * *

From a cinema advertisement:--

"Actual Scenes of our Local Charming Cheddar Valley and the
Beautiful West of England Coast Scenery, also predicting those
Glorious Sunset Scenes that made Sir Alfred Turner
'famous.'"--_West Country Paper_.

The General _will_ be pleased.

* * * * *

"To-day the weather has cleared, but the record according to a
correspondent who, signing himself the 'oldest inhabitant,' has
recently written to the press, stating that in 1178 there was
snow on Simla on 14th April, has now been easily
beaten."--_Rangoon Times_.

The oldest inhabitant, however, is still undefeated.

* * * * *

MY CUTHBERT.

For months I had been chasing Cuthbert. I had a store of withering
phrases burning to be poured over his unmentionable head. Last Tuesday
my opportunity arrived.

A stranger was sitting comfortably in a deck-chair watching the vacant
courts at the tennis club. His keen bronzed face and his obviously
athletic body, clothed in white flannel, brought back to me the far days
when the sharp clean crack in the adjoining field told of a loose one
which had been got away square.

I looked at him again and thought how glad he must be to get into mufti
for a few days. I tell you this to show how unprejudiced I was. The only
other signs of life were the two super-aborigines who inhabit the
croquet patch and detest all other mankind. I approached one of them
warily and asked a question. He regarded me with a bilious and
suspicious eye.

"Nothing whatever to do with the Army," he snapped, and a Prussian-blue
opponent was smacked off into an arid and hoopless waste.

"Ah!" I exclaimed, "then he's only a rabbit after all."

The old thing gave me an unfriendly glance and then missed his hoop
badly. I stro