it came,
  Or what’s the meaning hidden in its name,
  About its destination there’s no fear;
  And judging from a noted recent case,
  The Spinning House will,—­it is pretty clear,—­
  Itself be soon sent spinning into space.

* * * * *

“Is a husband worth having?” asks Woman.  One reply would be, “Well, that depends on whose husband it is.”  But, by the way, this view was not under consideration.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “ADVANCE, AUSTRALIA!”

BRITISH LION.  “BRAVO, BOYS!—­SWING TOGETHER!!”]

* * * * *

A WILD WELCOME.

  February’s reign of gloom
    Out of mind and sight is,
  Noonday darkness of the tomb,
    Carbon and bronchitis.

  Though the air is keen and chill,
    Cloudy though the skies are,
  Buoyant breaths our bosoms fill,
    Free from smart our eyes are.

  Bursting on the lengthening day
    Bellows March the Viking,
  “I have blown the fogs away;
    Is this to your liking?”

  Yes, thy voice o’er moor and mead
    Sets the spirits bounding,
  Like the Major’s chartered steed
    At the trumpet’s sounding.

  Welcome, roaring moon of dust,
    Welcome, Spring’s reviver;
  On the race again we must
    Risk the wonted fiver;

  Fields are showing brighter green,
    Early buds are shooting;
  On the early youth is seen
    The new season’s suiting.

  Long it is since sparrows shrill
    With their chirping woke us;
  There is one with busy bill
    Worrying a crocus.

  How they love the flow’r of spring—­
    Never can resist it;
  What a graceful little thing—­
    Bother, I have miss’d it!

  Now the wind along the plain
    Comes with roar and clatter—­
  There, my hat is off again! 
    Let it go—­no matter.

  What am I, to say thee nay
    In thy rudest phases? 
  Blow my Sunday hat away. 
    Blow my hat to blazes.

  ’Tis but little we can do
    For thy bounty’s measure—­
  Sacrifice a hat or two? 
    Forty hats, with pleasure.

* * * * *

KENSINGTON GARDENS SMALL TALK.

FROM THE RAILWAY IMPROVEMENT PHRASE-BOOK.

That Nursery-maid with the three children and the perambulator will certainly get run over by the train if she stands there gossiping with the man in the signal-box.

That is the nineteenth horse that has run away and thrown its rider this morning, frightened by the smoke of the passing engine.

So it is not, after all, a tornado that has swept across the Gardens, and rooted up all these trees, but merely the firm that has taken the contract for the making of the new line.

Yes, there is no doubt that this wooden fence, stretching right across the Gardens, relieved by overseers’ moveable hatch-houses, puffing steam-cranes, and processions of mud-carts, rather interfere with the beauty and tranquillity of the place, but one must really bear in mind that it is, after all, only to last for live years.