Miss T. Well, I do just enjoy making PRENDERGAST girl perfectly wild, and that’s a fact. (Reflectively.) And it’s queer, but I like her ever so much all the time.  Don’t you think that’s too fonny of me, Mr. CULCHARD, now?

    [CULCHARD feigns a poetic abstraction.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  OVER TIME IN LEAP YEAR.]

* * * * *

ONLY FANCY!

[Illustration:  Only Fancy!]

We are supplied by our special reporter with some interesting and significant facts in connection with the last Cabinet Council.  Lord SALISBUY arrived early, walking over from the Foreign Office under cover of an umbrella.  The fact that it was raining may only partly account for this manoeuvre.  Lord CROSS arrived in a four-wheeled cab and wore his spectacles.  Lord KNUTSFORD approached the Treasury walking on the left hand side of the road going westward, whilst Lord CRANBROOK deliberately chose the pavement on the other side of the way.  This is regarded as indicating a coolness between the Colonial Office and the Council of Education.  Lord HALSBURY alighted from a bus at the bottom of Downing Street, accomplishing the rest of the journey on foot.  He wore a new suit of the latest fashionable cut and a smile.  Mr. STANHOPE, approaching Downing Street from the steps, started violently when he caught sight of a figure on the steps of the Treasury fumbling with the door-handle.  He thought it was “VETUS,” but recognising the Home Secretary, advanced without further hesitation.  Lord GEORGE HAMILTON walked arm-in-arm as far as the door with Sir M. HICKS-BEACH.  Here they were observed to hastily relieve themselves from contiguity and enter in single file.  As they had up to that moment been engaged in earnest conversation, this little incident caused a sensation among the crowd looking on.  The new Chief Secretary was easily recognised as he descended from his hansom with a sprig of shamrock in his coat and another of shillelagh in his right hand.  Whilst waiting for change out of eighteenpence he softly whistled “God Save Ireland.”  Mr. RITCHIE did not appear, pleading influenza.  Our reporter informs us that there is more behind, and that before the Session is far advanced a change may be looked for at the Local Government Board.

* * * * *

A TRIAL IN NOVEL FORM.

    SCENE—­The Interior of Court during a sensational trial. 
    Bench, Bar, and Jury in a state of wild excitement as to what
    will happen next.

Judge (mysteriously handing note to Bar engaged in the case).  I have received this letter, which is deeply interesting.  It will form appropriately what I may call our Third Volume.  I hand it to Counsel, but they must keep it entirely to themselves.

First Leader (after perusal of document).  Did you ever?