Next time I met Rottenbury I told him of my success.

“Oh, Jorkins put you up to the trick, did he?”

“He did.  He taught me to titillate, to triturate, to masticate, to deglute—­everything.”

“And with what result?”

“With the result that I have in my possession five pounds of the finest tea that the greatest experts have blended from the combined products of Assam and China.”

“Tea?” he asked.

“Yes, tea of course.  You didn’t suppose that I was talking of oysters?”

“Did I tell you Jorkins was a tea-taster?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, he’s not.  He’s in tobacco.”

* * * * *

“Alured,” said my wife, “I wish you wouldn’t buy things for the house.  That tea is low-grade sweepings.”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  LE GRAND PENSEUR.

(With apologies to the late AUGUSTE RODIN.)

ADVERTISING ENTHUSIAST ON HIS HOLIDAY SEEKING INSPIRATION FOR A NEW
ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY.]

* * * * *

    “Sir Otto Beit has returned to London from South Africa, where he
    turned the first sot of the new university.”—­Daily Paper.

Turned him out, we trust.

* * * * *

    “In a brilliant peroration the Prime Minister warned his hearers that a
    nation was known by its soul and not by its asses.”—­South African
    Paper.

Yet some of our politicians seem to think that England is not past braying for.

* * * * *

“The doings (or rather sayings!) in the Legislature we are watching with sympathy and some impatience, much as a bachelor bears with the gambling of children who come to the drawing-room for an hour before dinner.”—­Weekly Paper.

And the worst of it is that the Legislature is gambling with our money.

* * * * *

    “Miss ——­, director of natural science studies at Newnham College,
    Oxford, will preside.”—­Daily Paper.

We are glad to hear of this new women’s college at Oxford, but surely they might have chosen a more original name for it.

* * * * *

A.G.J. writes:  “Your picture of ‘Come unto these Yellow Sands’ in the number for August 4th explains for the first time the obscure following line, ‘The Wild Waves Whist.’”

* * * * *

[Illustration:  “I HAVE NOT SEEN YOU AT CHURCH FOR TWO SUNDAYS, JOHN.”

“NO, SIR.  NO OFFENCE T’YOU, BUT OI A-BIN DOIN’ T’ CHAPEL PASSON’S GARDEN, SO MISSUS THOUGHT WE’D BETTER GIVE ’IM A TURN.”]

* * * * *

OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.

(By Mr. Punch’s Staff of Learned Clerks.)