"Number, please," as though I had rung you. (It is then
that I feel most that I should like to wring you.) When I reply, "But
you rang me," you revert to your prevailing regretful melancholy and
say, "Sorry you were troubled," and before I can go deeply into the
question and discover how these things occur you ring off. Can't
you make an effort during 1921 not to do this? Let it be a year of
gladness.

Sometimes I am perfectly certain you don't ring up the number I want
until after you have asked me once or twice if they have answered.
Isn't that so? "I'll ring them again," you say with a kind of resigned
adventurousness; but, knowing as I do that they have been waiting for
my call, I am not taken in. But what I want to know is--what were you
doing instead of ringing up at first? I suppose that these secrets
will never be penetrated by the ordinary subscriber outside the sacred
precincts; but I wish you would give me fewer of such problems to
ponder during the year that is coming.

P.S.--Have you ever considered, with proper alarm, what would happen
to a cinema story if a wrong number were provided by the operator, or
if any delay whatever occurred? This should make you think.

TO A RACING JOURNALIST.

I suggest that you should include among your good resolutions for the
New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your
special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them
all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security
tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet--which
of course they must, as betting is now the principal national
industry--let them at least have the fun of selecting the "also-ran"
themselves.

TO MANY AN EDITOR.

In contemplating your 1921 programme of regeneration could you not
make a vow to dispense with all headlines that ask questions? Probably
you never see the paper yourself and therefore have no feeling in the
matter, but I can assure you that the habit can become very wearisome.
"Will it freeze to-day?" "Can Beckett win?" "Will Hobbs reach his
3,000 runs?" "Are the Lords going to pass the Bill?" Won't you make an
effort to do without this formula? It is futile in itself and has the
unfortunate effect of raising what surely are undesirable doubts as to
whether journalists are any more sensible than their readers.

TO ONE EDITOR IN PARTICULAR.

No comic hats in 1921, please.

TO THE P.M.G.

There is, as everyone (exce