(_Yawning, though rude, is, according to the doctors, an extremely
healthy exercise._)
I have a friend who wrote a book
And begged me to peruse it,
And bluntly state the view I took--
Encourage or abuse it.
I want, he said, the truth alone,
But said it in a hopeful tone.
Perceiving there was no escape,
With Chapter I. I led off;
Page 2 provoked my earliest gape,
At 3 I yawned my head off,
At 4 I cast the thing away
Unto some dim and distant day.
For weeks I racked my harassed brain
For something kind and ruthful,
To spare his feelings and remain
Comparatively truthful
(I'm very often troubled by
My inability to lie).
"Dear Charles," I wrote him in the end,
"I fear no contradiction
When I declare that you have penned
A healthy work of fiction.
I am, I candidly admit,
A sounder man through reading it."
* * * * *
"Captain Turner only got a single
when J. W. Hearne bowled him, and
lunch was taken.
ESSEX.
F. L. Fane c. Hendren b. Kidd 57
Russell run out 51
Major Turner b. J. W. Hearne 1"
Probably the Major got his step during lunch; and it was no doubt richly
deserved, though not on account of the score he had made in the morning
as a Captain.
* * * * *
"John Charles Edmund Carson were the names which Lord Gillford, the
infant heir of Lord and Lady Clanwilliam, received yesterday
afternoon."
_Daily Mail._
If only this were a misprint for John Charles Redmond Carson.
* * * * *
"The anniversary of the Cattle of the Boyne was celebrated with
unusual enthusiasm throughout Canada."
_"Times" Toronto Correspondent._
These were the original Irish bulls, we suppose.
* * * * *
"Plant strawberry runners with grouse on Aug. 12th."--_R.H.S.
Gardener's Diary._
"Plant daffodils between grouse and partridges."--_R.H.S.
Gardener's Diary._
The daffodils should make good cover, but the runners will stand no
chance against the Cockney sportsman.
* * * * *
Illustration: THE OLD, OLD PROBLEM.