"News of Waterloo just received. Jobey, who has charge of all
the cricket implements and is generally the custodian of the
playing fields, monstrously drunk, on the ground of having won
the battle."

This conclusively proves that there was a Jobey before the old
fellow who has just died aged 85. But how anyone can be
interested in people aged only 85, I cannot conceive. My own age
is 118, and I am still in possession of an exact memory and a
deadly diary.

I remain, Sir, Yours truly,

JOHN BARCHESTER.

Sir,--Although in my hundred-and-fiftieth year I can still
recollect my school days with crystal clearness, and it pains me
to find a lot of young Etonians claiming to have had dealings
with the original Jobey. The original Jobey died in 1827, and I
was at his funeral. He was then a middle-aged man of 93. When I
was at Eton in 1776-1783, he stood with his basket opposite
"Grim's," and if any of us refused to buy he gave us a black
eye. Discipline was lax in those days, but we were all the
better for it. On Jobey's death a line of impostors no doubt was
established, trying to profit by the great name; but none of
these can be called the original Jobey, except under
circumstances of the crassest ignorance or folly.

I am, Yours, etc., SENEX.

Sir,--It is tolerably obvious that your correspondent "Drury's"
is suffering from hallucinations of the most virulent type.
_Maxima debetur pueris reverentia_ is all very well, but facts
are facts. There may have been many pseudo-Jobeys, but the real
original was born in the year of the Great Fire of London and
died in 1745. He was already installed in the reign of WILLIAM
III., and was the first to introduce Blenheim oranges to the
Etonian palate. He was an under-sized man, about five feet five
inches high, with a pale face and hooked nose and always wore a
woollen muffler, which we called "Jobey's comforter." To
represent him as belonging to the Victorian age is an
anachronism calculated to make the angels weep.

I am, Sir, Yours everlastingly,

MELCHISEDEK PONTOPPIDAN.

* * * * *

A MOTHER TO AN EMPEROR.

I made him mine in pain and fright,
The only little lad I'd got,
And woke up aching night by night
To mind him in his baby cot;
And, whiles, I jigged him on m