'VE
NOBBUT TO LIE AWAKE. I'VE GOT TO LIE AWAKE AN' CORF.'"]

* * * * *

HOW, WHY AND WHAT.

_(Being the Tragedy of the Conscientious Inquirer who fell among
Philistines.)_

There was an old man who said, "How
Can I link the To-Be with the Now?"
But they said, "Poor old thing!
You've been reading Dean INGE,
And you're _not_ high enough in the brow."

But in spite of this check he said, "Why
Is my Ego the same as my I?"
So they put him to bed
And placed ice on his head
till the cerebral storm had passed by.

Now I'm told he is asking them, "What
Use has psycho-analysis got?"
And they answer, "N.E.
If you're not an M.D.,
Or a novelist minus a plot."

* * * * *

"A cargo of 800 German pianos arrived at the Tyne from Hamburg
on Saturday."

_Daily Paper._

Another key industry in danger.

* * * * *

[Illustration: UNFINISHED DRAWING FOR "PUNCH" BY THE LATE F. H.
TOWNSEND.

THE FIGURE OF THE LITTLE GIRL WAS SKETCHED ON THE MORNING OF HIS
DEATH. THE LEGEND WHICH THIS PICTURE WAS TO ILLUSTRATE IS NOT KNOWN.]

* * * * *

MAYBIRDS.

I can see some justification for keeping peacocks, especially if
you have shaven lawns and terraces and sundials, though sundials, I
imagine, are rather a nuisance now-a-days, because of the trouble of
having them reset for summer and winter time. Peacocks at any rate are
beautiful, and, if their voices are apt in England to become a little
hoarse, that is only because they screech when the weather is going to
be bad.

The pheasant is also a useful and beautiful fowl. One may put down
bread-crumbs to attract the pheasant to one's garden when he is alive,
or to one's plate when he is dead.

But I can see no justification whatever for keeping maybirds, for
they are neither useful nor beautiful. Perhaps you do not know what
a maybird is. I have five maybirds. I have them because people here
would keep saying to me, "Look at the price of fresh eggs, and how
much nicer it is to have your own." It is a curious thing about the
country that people are always giving one disinterested advice in
the matter of domestic economy. In London it is different. In London
people let you take a twopenny bus ticket to Westminster instead of
walking across the Park, and go to ruin in your own sweet way. T