* * * * *

TO THE SPEAKER ON HIS RE-ELECTION.

  Good Mr. SPEAKER, in this troublous time,
  When it is hard to string a cheerful rhyme,
  Your genial influence unshaken bides
  Amid the flux of shifting sands and tides;
  And, re-electing you by acclamation,
  The Parliament has acted for the nation,
  Which, while acknowledging the Members’ nous,
  Congratulates not you, Sir, but the House.

  ’Tis fourteen years since you were called to bear
  The heavy burdens of your “perilous Chair”—­
  What years, what burdens!  Yet your steadfast mien
  Has never failed to dominate the scene. 
  Others have found the post a giant’s robe
  Or lacked the needful patience of a Job;
  But you, by dint of fearless common sense,
  Have won and held all Parties’ confidence;
  Firm as the rock and as the crystal clear,
  When need arises righteously austere,
  Ready, not eager, your advice to lend,
  And not afraid in season to unbend.

  Thus, tested by a strain that very few,
  If any, of your predecessors knew,
  You come at last, among the lesser fry,
  To loom so largely in the public eye,
  That, we regard you, greatest of your clan,
  More as an institution than a man.

* * * * *

THE REST-CURE.

    “Will young officer requiring rest help farmer catch rabbits for a
    month?”—­Church Family Newspaper.

THE RETURN.

It was at tea last Sunday that we met for the first time for three-and-a-half years.  He was sadly altered.  To the casual observer he may still appear his own attractive self; the change in him is deeper.

He isn’t what he was, but none the less it is wonderfully delightful to have him among us again.  A girl at the next table noticed him and spoke smilingly to her companion.  But I—­I sat and looked at him and never said a word.

Before the War I was fond of him, but I doubt if I could ever have realised how much I should miss him; and nothing has brought home to me so surely the astounding fact that at last it is over as his return.

Sitting opposite to him here brought back the jolly memories of other teas in that distant pre-war life of ours—­memories of bright faces, gentle clatter of cups, charm of soft clothes, strange forgotten sense of comforts, and one particular smile; and, throwing off from me the gathering gloom of the war-weary, I dug my fork joyously into his brown bosom and raised the chocolate eclair to my lips.

* * * * *

    “By placing a lemon in the oven for a few minutes nearly the
    entire pulp turns to juice.  When next you want orange-juice try
    this.”—­Glasgow Citizen.

But why not use an orange?

* * * * *