Ruin occurs--ay! there's the rub
Alike for Labour and Beelzebub.

And anyhow I hope that, where
At red of dawn on Rigi's height
He jodels to the astonished air,
LLOYD GEORGE is bent on sitting tight;
Nor, as he did in THOMAS' case,
Nurses a scheme for saving SMILLIE'S face.

Why should his face be saved? indeed,
Why should he have a face at all?
But, if he _must_ have one to feed
And smell with, let the man install
A better kind, and thank his luck
That _all_ his headpiece hasn't come unstuck.

O.S.

* * * * *

A WHIFF OF THE BRINY.

As I entered the D.E.F. Company's depôt, Melancholy marked me for her own.
Business reasons--not my own but the more cogent business reasons of an
upperling--had just postponed my summer holiday; postponed it with a lofty
vagueness to "possibly November. We might be able to let you go by then, my
boy." November! What would Shrimpton-on-Sea be like even at the beginning
of November? Lovely sea-bathing, delicious boating, enchanting picnics on
the sand? I didn't think. Melancholy tatooed me all over with anchors and