SHAKSPEARE on not the least surprising of Mr. LLOYD GEORGE'S
appointments:--

"How now, Woolsack? what mutter you?"
_I. Henry IV._, ii. 4, 148.

* * * * *

ANOTHER HEATHEN CHINEE.

We were discussing "slim" practices and the prevalence of the basic
desire to get something for nothing.

"If honesty," said one of the company, "is truly the best policy, then
there is a surfeit of the worst politician."

"Yes," said another, "and not only in the West. I assure you, speaking
as the director of an insurance concern in Shanghai, that you have no
monopoly in inventive chicanery. Insurance people must always be on
their guard, but never more so than among the guileless Celestials. I
can give you a case in point. Not long ago we received a visit from
the wife of one of our policy-holders, saying that her husband was
dead and claiming the money.

"'Certainly,' we said, 'the payment will be made, but only after the
usual investigations,' and sent her back to her village. It is not
that we were more suspicious of her than of anyone else, but such
formalities are essential. In this case they turned out to be
peculiarly necessary, for her husband was no more dead than you are.