she added, brightening up, as if struck by a happy solution of the
difficulty, "does it mean that the Clerical Assurance Society means to
take in washing? Most useful if they do, and so paying."

* * * * *

DEFINITION OF "CHAFF."--The husk of Wit.

* * * * *

[Illustration: "THERE'S THE RUB!"

BILL-POSTER (_uneasily_). "IF THAT PIG DON'T MEAN DEVILTRY, I'M A ----
SEPARATIST!"]

* * * * *

PLAYING OLD HARRY AT THE LYCEUM.

[Illustration: The Magnetic Lady.]

"I once did manage to make a cast correctly," writes ANDREW LANG, in
his charming book anent the sport and pastime of fishing, and if ever
HENRY IRVING made a cast to catch the public, it is now, when he uses
as his bait SHAKSPEARE's _Henry the Eighth_, got up in a style which
emphatically "beats the record," so utterly "regardless of expense" is
it, with well-tried, responsible actors, in what may be called minor
parts, though the majority of the _dramatis personæ_ are on a fair
dramatic equality, and with Our ELLEN TERRY, as _Queen Katharine_, and
himself as the great Lord Cardinal.