Expect me back soon. Ah, what an escape!--to think I might have
languished for the best of my days in irons or in the mines out in
Siberia, like _Rip Van Winkle_, or the Prisoner of Chillon, who dug
himself out with his nails (when I was a boy I remember it, and tried
to do it in the garden), and came up with a long beard when everyone
was dead and gone. I may return as a stowaway, but anyhow expect me,
and prepare the fatted outlet. That's humorous, isn't it, eh?

[Illustration: "Suddenly from their awful manner, their frowns, and
violent expressions, it occurred to me, 'Hang it all! They take me for
a Jew!"'--_Extract from Letter from Our Yotting Yorick_.]

Yours, JETSAM, THE Y.Y.

19,000 miles away too! Just imagine!

* * * * *

AUTOMATIC PROGRESS.

The Proprietors of the "Automatic Chair" having had reason to think
their invention such a success that they have turned it into a
Company, a stimulus has been given to ingenuity in this direction,
with the result that the following prospective advertisement, or
something very much like it, may shortly be expected to see the
light:--

THE AUTOMATIC FURNITURE SUPPLY ASSOCIATION, started for the purpose of
meeting the daily-increasing demand for self-acting and trouble-saving
appliances in the domestic arrangements of the modern household, beg