“In addition to the fine work done by the Irish regiments he assured
    them that many a warm Irish heart beat under a Scottish kilt.”—­Local
    Paper.

Surely Irishmen enlisted in Scottish regiments are not so down-hearted as all that!

* * * * *

THE TALE OF THE TUNEFUL TUB.

["Why do so many people sing in the bathroom?...  The note is struck for them by the running water.  While the voice sounds resonantly in the bath-room it is not half so fine and inspiring when the song is continued in the dressing-room.  The reason is that the furniture of the dressing-room tends to deaden the reverberations.”—­Prof.  W.H.  BRAGG on “The World of Sound."]

  When to my morning tub I go,
    With towel, dressing-gown and soap,
  Then most, the while I puff and blow,
  My soul with song doth overflow
    (Not unmelodiously, I hope).

  The plashing of the H. and C.
    Castalian stimulus affords;
  I reach with ease an upper G
  And, like the wild swan, carol free
    The gamut of my vocal chords.

  And when, my pure ablutions o’er,
    The larynx fairly gets to work,
  Amid the unplugged water’s roar
  I caper, trolling round the floor,
    In tones as rich as THOMAS BURKE.

  But in my dressing-room’s retreat
    My native wood-notes wilt and sag;
  Not there those raptures I repeat;
  My bellow now becomes a bleat
    (For reasons, ask Professor BRAGG).

  So, Ruth, if song may find a path
    Still through thy heart, be listening by
  The bathroom while I take my bath;
  But leave before the aftermath,
    Nor while I’m dressing linger nigh.

  On the acoustic side, I fear,
    My chest of drawers is quite a “dud;”
  The chairs would silence Chanticleer,
  Nor would I have you overhear
    When I have lost my collar-stud.

* * * * *

BOOKS AND BACKS.

The proposal to revive the old “yellow back” cover for novels, partly in the interest of economy in production, partly to attract the purchaser by the lure of colour, has caused no little stir in the literary world.  In order to clarify opinion on the subject Mr. Punch has been at pains to secure the following expressions of their views from some of the leading authors of both sexes:—­

Mr. J.M.  KEYNES, C.B., the author of the most sensational book of the hour, contributed some interesting observations on the economics of the dye industry and their bearing on the question.  These we are reluctantly obliged to omit.  We may note however his general conclusion that the impact on the public mind of a book often varies in an inverse ratio with the attractiveness of its appearance or its title.  At the same time he admits that if he had called his momentous work The Terrible Treaty, and if it had been bound in a rainbow cover with a Cubist design, its circulation might have been even greater than it actually is.  But then, as he candidly owns, “as a Cambridge man, I may be inclined to attach an undue importance to ‘Backs.’”