McGregor didn’t say that last, but he looked it.

Yours ever, Henry.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  McTavish (purchasing paper of posterless newsboy). “AWEEL, it’s A ‘Pig in A Poke,’ but AH’LL risk it.”]

* * * * *

“Frightfulness” in England.

“Boys wanted for Kicking. ------ Stamping Works.”--Midland Evening News.

* * * * *

“‘THE MAGIC FLUTE.’

    One ingenious commentator has suggested that the opera has some basis
    in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’  Sarastro is Prospero, Pamina Miranda,
    Tamino Ferdinand, and perhaps Monostatos Caliban.”—­Glasgow Herald.

The fact that these Shakespeare characters all occur in “The Tempest” enhances the ingenuity of the suggestion.

* * * * *

“The biggest fire in living memory occurred in Chapelhall on Monday morning, when the Roman Catholic School was partly destroyed along with the recreation rooms, damage amounting to L2,000.”—­Scotch Local Paper.

The parish pump was probably out of order when this unparalleled conflagration occurred; but is seems to be at work again now.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “MOTHER, D’YOU KNOW I’VE ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT BECAME OF OLD TOP-HATS.”]

* * * * *

TO MY GODSON.

(Aged six weeks.)

  Small bundle, enveloped in laces,
    For whom I stood sponsor last week,
  When you slept, with the pinkest of faces,
    And never emitted a squeak;
  Though vain is the task of illuming
    The Future’s inscrutable scroll,
  I cannot refrain from assuming
    A semi-prophetical role,

  I predict that in paths Montessorian
    Your infantile steps will be led,
  And with modes which are Phrygian and Dorian
    Your musical appetite fed;
  You’ll be taught how to dance by a Russian,
    “Eurhythmics” you’ll learn from a Swiss,
  How not to behave like a Prussian—­
    No teaching is needed for this!

  Will you learn Esperanto at Eton? 
    Or, if Eton by then is suppressed,
  Be sent to grow apples or wheat on
    A ranche in the ultimate West? 
  Will you aim at a modern diploma
    In civics or commerce or stinks? 
  Inhale the Wisconsin aroma
    Or think as the Humanist thinks?

  Will you learn to play tennis from COVEY
    Or model your stroke on JAY GOULD? 
  Will you play the piano like TOVEY
    Or by gramophone records be schooled? 
  Will you golf, or will golfing be banished
    To answer the needs of the plough,
  And links from the landscape have vanished
    To pasture the sheep and the cow?