Very Irish eggs.

* * * * *

    “12 Feet Corsets at a ridiculous price of Re. 1 each, all
    sizes.”—­Advt. in “Advocate of India."

“A ridiculous price,” says the advertiser, but “an absurd figure” would have been even better.

* * * * *

“The Examiners appointed by the Board of the Faculty of Natural Science give notice that Wilfrid Dyson Hambly, Jesus College, having submitted a dissertation on ’Tattooing and other forms of body-marking among primitive peoples,’ will be publicly examined on Monday, November 12, at 2.30 p.m., in the Department of Social Anthropology, Barnett House.”—­Oxford University Gazette.

We trust he showed, and obtained, full marks.

* * * * *

To ATTILA’S understudy.

    [Reuter reports that a British prisoner has been sentenced to a
    year’s imprisonment for calling Germans “Huns.”]

  The choice was yours, we understood. 
    We thought that, when you wished to cater
  For China’s spiritual good,
    This name received your imprimatur;
      “Go forth,” you said, “my sons! 
  Go and behave exactly like the Huns!”

  Though under any other name,
    However alien to their nature,
  Your people would have smelt the same,
    We let you choose their nomenclature,
      And studiously respected
  The one that in your wisdom you selected.

  And now, when someone, clearly set
    On flattering you by imitation,
  Applies that chosen epithet
    To certain units of your nation,
      It seems a little odd
  That you should go and clap him into quod.

  Perhaps you’ve come to hold the view
    That when you claimed to touch their level
  You were unfair to heathens who
    Candidly called their god a devil;
      Who fought some barbarous fights,
  But fought at least according to their lights.

  So Huns are off.  Who takes their place? 
    Well, since no beast on earth would stick it
  If after him we named your race,
    We’ll call you Germans—­there’s your ticket;
      Just Germans—­that’s a style
  Which can’t offend the other vermin’s bile.

O. S.

* * * * *

Nightmares.

II.

Of A T.B.D.  Captain, who dreams that he has found his Log book made up by Mr. Ph*L*P G*BBS.