(_By a Confirmed Pessimist._)
_Plan the First._--Take to Volunteering. Be up at daybreak. Leave
your home after snatching a hasty breakfast of lukewarm tea and stale
bread-and-butter. Crowd into a railway-carriage, and travel a hundred
miles or so in the greatest discomfort. Fall in with your company.
March, counter-march, and stand at ease for ten hours or so in
sunshine, rain, fog, or snow. Stave off starvation with a packet of
sandwiches and a bottle of ginger ale. Dead beat, enter crowded train
a second time, and again travel a hundred miles or so in the greatest
discomfort. More dead than alive, stagger home, and wearily roll into
bed.
_Plan the Second._--Try a trip to the sea-side. Share a first-class
compartment with a dozen third-class passengers. Travel to
Shrimpington with the accompaniment of rank tobacco-smoke, comic
songs, and solos on the concertina. Get to your destination with a
splitting headache. Find that all the shops are shut, and all
the taverns open. Learn that Shrimpington, as represented by its
respectable inhabitants, goes away _en masse_ on a bank holiday.
Discover that there is but one hotel in the place. Ascertain that at
the solitary hostelry the rooms are filled with noisy excursionists,
greedily devouring "the shilling tea." Search for nourishment,
and fail in your search. Fall back upon stale buns at a third-rate
sweet-stuff shop. Catch your train back, and endure the torture of the
morning. Travel amongst the same company, under the like conditions.
Reach home hours later than you proposed on starting, and consider
whether the holiday has been a triumphant success or a dismal failure.
_Plan the Third_ (_highly recommended_).--Although desiring change,
remain at home, choosing the lesser of two evils.
* * * * *
MR. GULLY.--"WILLIAM COURT GULLY, M.P."--certainly "Caught GULLY" at
last. Now the question is, "WILL GULLY" be acceptable to all parties
"E-gully"?
* * * * *
[Illustration: GENTLE IRONY.
_'Bus Driver_ (_to ill-favoured Policeman, who has stopped him at a
crossing_). "WHEN ARE YER GOIN' TO LET ME 'AVE THAT PHOTO?"]
* * * * *