* * * * *

BAR BARRED!

SCENE--_A Parliamentary Committee Room. Committee sitting
at horse-shoe table. Bar crowded at table covered with
plans, custards, buns, agreements, and ginger-beer. Huge
plans hanging to walls. View in distance of St. Thomas's
Hospital. East-West Diddlesex Railway Extension Bill under
consideration. Expert Witness standing at reading-desk under
examination_.

_Junior Counsel_ (_for Promoters_). You have told us that there is a
cutting at Burnt House Mill, coloured red in plan--in your opinion
do you think that the road passing; by Hoggsborough, coloured green,
could be so diverted as to avoid the necessity of throwing a bridge
over the River Crowe, coloured yellow?

_Expert Witness_ (_with great deliberation, and illustrating his
remarks by references to a large plan_). In my opinion I think the
necessity of building a bridge over the River Crowe may be avoided
by skirting the Swashbuckler Estate, and by making a new road that
would cross the proposed line by a level crossing at Twaddlecomb, and
ultimately reach Market Goosebury, coloured blue, by following the
course of the Raisensworth, coloured black.

_Junior Counsel_. Thank you--that will do. [_Sits down._

_First Cross-Examining Q.C._ (_suddenly entering from another