by the valet and the hosier and the hairdresser, but there’s a taxi at the door and with any luck he will now get clear away.  In the hall, however, the cook meets him in order to give notice, and by the time he has dealt with that crisis the Private Secretary has had three wrong numbers and given it up, and the Fish-Friers’ man has bumped his head and given it up.  They give chase together and catch the public man just as he is escaping from the front-door.  The Private Secretary starts again about the Lord Mayor’s lunch, and the Fish-Friers’ man starts again about the position.

The public man knows now that he is done, so he drives them into the taxi and says he will talk to them on the way to the PRIME MINISTER.  The taxi dashes off, leaving the hosier and the hairdresser and the valet wringing their hands in the hall.

The only thing the public man can do now is to invent a new crisis for the Private Secretary, who is still saying in a cold dispassionate voice, “Are you going to the Lord Mayor’s lunch?”

So he thinks of one of the letters he has hidden in his dressing-gown and tells the Private Secretary that he must have that letter for the Bottle-Washers’ meeting.  Then he stops the taxi at a place where there is no Underground and no ’bus, and pushes the Private Secretary out.  He has disposed of the Private Secretary for the day.

But the Fish-Friers’ man’s throat is practically clear by now and he gets to work at once.  The public man pays no attention but prepares in his mind his opening sentences to the PRIME MINISTER.  In the Park he sees two other public men walking and he takes them into the cab.  Each of them has discovered some entirely new smells and starts talking about them at once very fast.  The public man promises to go and try them all immediately.  When he gets to the PRIME MINISTER’S he rings up and cancels the Fish-Friers and the Bottle-Washers.  When he has done that the Assistant-Secretary to the PRIME MINISTER’S Principal Private Secretary’s Secretary comes out and says that the PRIME MINISTER has been called away suddenly to Geneva.

The public man then goes off after the new smells.  A dog’s life.

A.P.H.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  Visitor (to actor friend).  “Y’KNOW, I WAS GOIN’ ON THE STAGE MYSELF ONCE, BUT MY PEOPLE DINE SO LATE.”]

* * * * *

A SPORTING OFFER.

“Rabbit trapper would take so much the couple or rent them, or give so much the couple and kill them.”—­Scotch Paper.

* * * * *

A CORNISH LULLABY.

A.D. 1760.

Sleep, my little ugling,
Daddy’s gone a-smuggling,
Daddy’s gone to Roscoff in the Mevagissey Maid,
A sloop of ninety tons
With ten brass-carriage guns,
To teach the King’s ships manners and respect for honest trade.