Am I singular?  I think not.  There are others whose mannerisms plague me too.  For instance, TRUBERRY, whom I meet occasionally, has a wild and venomous habit of relating to me his infinitesimal jokelets.  That I could pardon.  But when, having related one, he bursts, as he always does, into a helpless suffocation of purple laughter, the savage within me awakes and I murder TRUBERRY in fancy to an accompaniment of refined and protracted tortures.  Once, as I helped him on with his overcoat, he joked and exploded.  My fingers were horribly near his throat.  But I mastered the impulse, and TRUBERRY will never know how near he was to destruction.  And to make matters worse, he is one of the kindest and most considerately helpful of human beings.  Oh, IRRITATION, IRRITATION, you have much to answer for.  The fly in the ointment of the apothecary was a baby to you.  Avaunt, avaunt!

DIOGENES ROBINSON.

* * * * *

THE VERY LATEST.—­Mrs. RAM had a paragraph read to her from the D.T.’s “London Day by Day,” recounting how the Archbishop of CANTERBURY when staying at Haddo House, had attended service in the parish Kirk, which conduct might have provoked High Churchmen to assail him for “bowing the knee in the House of Rimmon.”  Thinking it over afterwards, when she had muddled up the name in her usual fashion, our old friend Mrs. R. observed, with some humour, that she thought “the Archbishop had shown his good scents by going to the House of RIMMEL.”

* * * * *

NOTICE.—­Rejected Communications or Contributions, whether MS., Printed Matter, Drawings, or Pictures of any description, will in no case be returned, not even when accompanied by a Stamped and Addressed Envelope, Cover, or Wrapper.  To this rule there will be no exception.