do, indeed--'_returned a verdict in accordance with the medical
testimony_.'"

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[Illustration: PUNCH'S PIC-NIC. THE PARLIAMENTARY MIRAGE.]

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LETTERS TO ABSTRACTIONS.

NO. XIII.--TO IRRITATION.

I have just come home from my Club in a state bordering upon
distraction. No great misfortune has happened to me, my dearest
friend has not been black-balled, the Club bore has not had me in his
unrelenting clutches. The waiters have been, as indeed they always
are, civil and obliging, the excellent _chef_ catered with his
usual skill to my simple mid-day wants, my table companions were
good-humoured, cheerful, and pleasantly cynical. What then, you may
ask, has happened to shatter my nerves and impair my temper for the
day? It is a simple matter, and I am almost ashamed to confess it
openly. But I am encouraged by the fact that two eminently solid and,
so far as I could see, perfectly unemotional gentlemen were as deeply
pricked and worried by what happened as I was myself. To begin with,
I do not admit that my nerves vibrate more easily than those of my
fellow-men. I have never killed an organ-grinder, I am guiltless of
the blood of a German band, I have even gone so far as to spare guards
who asked for my railway-ticket after I had carefully wrapped myself
up for a journey, and no touting vendor of subscription books or works