"Well," he said, "I could have sworn I knew every man who ever fished at
Blank, but this fellow---- Oh, wait a minute! You say he is tall and
bulky and had travelled, and his son was in the Boer War, and he has
been in Parliament? Why, it must be old Carstairs. And yet it can't be.
Carstairs was never married and was never in Parliament."
He pondered again.
Then he said, "You're sure it wasn't a clean-shaven bald man with a
single eyeglass?"
"Quite," I said.
"Because," he went on, "if he had been it would have been old Peterson
to the life."
"He wasn't bald or clean-shaven," I said.
"You're sure he said Blank?" he inquired after another interval of
profound thought.
"Absolutely," I replied.
"Tell me again what he was like. Tell me exactly. I know every one up
there; I must know him."
"He was a vigorous, bulky, very tall man," I said, "with a pointed beard
and a mass of grey hair under a panama; and he went to Blank every
August. He had been a great traveller and knew Persia; he had been in
Parliament, and one of his sons was in the siege of Mafeking."
"I don't know him," he said.
* * * * *
"Foreign gentleman desires English lady to correct him, during
one hour every morning, from 9 to 10."--_Bournemouth Daily
Echo._
There is one foreigner whom innumerable English ladies would be
delighted to correct; but he is no gentleman.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Hostess (alluding to latest photograph of herself)._
"Well, dear, do you think it's like me?"
_Polite little Girl._ "Well, I don't think it has made you look
quite--quite--grown up enough."]
* * * * *
"BIOLOGY AT THE FRONT."
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR,--I am encouraged by reading the very interesting letter which
appeared in your issue of May 29th under the heading, "Biology at the
Front," and dealt with the habit acquired by French poultry of imitating
the sound of flying shells, to relate an experience which recently
befell me. I was seated at breakfast "Somewhere in France," and had
ordered, as is my custom, a boiled egg. When it was brought to me I
proceeded to open it by giving it a smart tap. The egg immediately
exploded with a loud report, and the contents were scattered in all
directions. Those at table with me at once threw themselves prostrate on
the ground, and one, whose olfactory nerves were excessively developed,
exhibited every symptom of being gassed. On questioning the innkeeper we
learnt that the egg had been laid some weeks before by a hen in the
neighbourhood of the Front. I had previously noticed that it was
elongated in shape, the small end being pointed and the base end nearly
flat, while the whole was cased in a shell.
The continuance of this imitative habit would be a strange perpetual
memorial of the Great War--particularly for Pacificist politicians.
Yours, &c., Darwinian.
_The Ashpit, Egham._
* * * * *