“’Or you might do ’er off Cape Stiff in the ’igh latitudes yonder,
  With her main-deck a smother of white an’ her lee-rail dipping under,
  And the big greybeards drivin’ by an’ breakin’ aboard like thunder.

  “’Or I’d like old Tuskar somewhere around—­or Sydney ’eads, maybe,
  Or Bar Light, or the Tail o’ the Bank, or a glimp o’ Circular Quay,
  Or a junk or two, if she’s tradin’ East, to show it’s the China Sea.

  “‘Nor I don’t want no dabs o’ paint as you can’t tell what they are,
  Whether they’re shadders or fellers’ faces or blocks or blobs o’ tar,
  But I want gear as looks like gear an’ a spar that’s like a spar.

  “‘An’ I don’t care if it’s North or South, the Trades or the China Sea,
  Shortened down or everythin’ set, close-hauled or runnin’ free;
  You paint me a ship as is like a ship an’ that’ll do for me.’”

  C.F.S.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Old-fashioned Aunt. “GOOD HEAVENS, CHILD!  YOU’RE NOT GOING OUT LIKE THAT?  YOU LOOK LIKE A CHORUS-GIRL.”

Modern Maiden. “OH, COME, AUNT!  I DON’T LOOK AS HORRIBLY RESPECTABLE AS THAT, SURELY?”]

* * * * *

EGYPTIAN DARKNESS.

“Several letters have appeared in the native Press in some of which they ask Minindirect way, as they have done, but in a indirect way they have done but in a clear clear manner which cannot be interpreted two ways.”—­Egyptian Gazette.

Or, so far as we are concerned, even one way.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  ANOTHER “RESERVATION.”

STARVING EUROPE.  “GOD HELP ME!”

AMERICA.  “VERY SAD CASE.  BUT I’M AFRAID SHE AIN’T TRYING.”

["Relief would be found in the resumption of industrial life and activity and the imposition of adequate taxation.  The American people should not be called upon to finance the requirements of Europe in so far as they result from failure to take these necessary steps.”—­Mr. CARTER GLASS, Secretary of the United States Treasury.]]

* * * * *

THE BIG-GAME CURE.

    [In common with everything else, wild animals have risen considerably
    in price.]

  In other times I might have made
    For those wild lands where growls the grisly,
  Have tracked him (with some native aid)
    And held a broken-hearted Bisley;
  Now that my Maud has murmured, “Nay,”
    Shrinking from matrimony’s tight knot,
  I might have acted thus, I say
    (Contrariwise, I might not).

  In any case to-day I shrink
    From thus evading Sorrow’s trammels;
  A sense of duty bids me think
    How costly are the larger mammals;
  To kill them just to soothe my mind
    Would seem to savour of the wasteful,
  A thing all patriot poets find
    Exceedingly distasteful.