must leave off.

* * * * *

ALLIRAP ASRAS.

It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler,
but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be
the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition,
rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts.
Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian
kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth
of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite
of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it
was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed,
my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC
NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women
must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a
coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme
heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old
and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before)
fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most
of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only
disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler
to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that.

It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer
among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur
photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy
cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up