hese purple evening coats with yellow lapels,
These vests composed in flowered brocades;
Nor can I think that noisy checks
Would help me to attract the other sex.

With gaudy schemes that rouse my solemn dander
I leave our frivolous youth to flirt;
A riband round my straw--for choice, Leander;
A subtle nuance in my shirt;
For tie, the colours of my school--
These are the limits of my austere rule.

But, when they'd have me swathe the clamorous tartan
In lieu of trousers round my waist,
Then they evoke the spirit of the Spartan
Inherent in my simple taste;
Inexorably I decline
To drape the kilt on any hips of mine.

It may be they will count me over-modest,
Deem me Victorian, dub me prude;
I may have early views, the very oddest,
On what is chaste and what is rude;
Yet am I certain that my leg
Would not look right beneath a filibeg.

I love the Scot as being truly British;
Golf (and the Union) makes us one;
Yet to my nature, which is far from skittish
And lacks his local sense of fun,
There is a something almost foreign
About his strange attachment to the sporran.

So, when a bargain-sale is held of chattels
Surviving from the recent War--
Textiles and woollens, built for use in battles--
And Scotland's there inquiring for
The kilt department, I shall not
Be found competing. She can have the lot.

O.S.

* * * * *

THE DOMESTIC PROBLEM.

"Well, I've been to see three of them now," she said. "The first is at
Shepherd's Bush--"

"What pipes!" I ejaculated. "What music! What wild ecstasy!"

"--four hundred yards from the Central Tube, to be exact; and there's a
large roller skating-rink next door. You never rolled, did you? Three
sessions daily, the advertisement says."

"I'm afraid I sat oftener than that when I rolled," I confessed. "'Another
transport split,' as the evening papers say. I wonder whether Sir ERIC
GEDDES is the rink-controller. But tell me a little about the house. I
suppose there's a high premium and a deep basement?"

"There are."

"Next, please."

"The next is at Chiswick; very damp and miles and miles to catch your bus.
And there's a basement again."

"You might grow mushrooms in the basement," I said hopefully, "while I
hunted my Pimlico on the shore. What about the third?"

"The third is at Hampstead, very high up and very salubrious. The agent
says