"Oh, maiden fair," I said at last,
"To hear you talk is most delightful;
But yet the time, it's clear, you've passed
In reading must be something frightful.
Come--do you trouble thus your head
Because you want to go to College
By getting out of Mr. STEAD
£300 for General Knowledge?"

"Kind Sir," she promptly then replied,
"Your guess, I quite admit, was clever,
And, if I now in you confide,
You'll keep it dark, I'm sure, for ever.
Yet do not get, I pray, enraged,
For how I got my information
Was simply this--_I have engaged_
_A Coach in General Conversation_,"

* * * * *

SERVED À LA RUSSE.

MY DEAR MR. PUNCH,

Will you allow me, as one who knows Russia by heart, to express my
intense admiration for the new piece at the Shaftesbury Theatre, in
which is given, in my opinion, the most faithful picture of the CZAR's
dominions as yet exhibited to the British Public. ACT I. is devoted
to "a Street near the Banks of the Neva, St. Petersburg," and here