_Curph._ (_after reflection_). Well, really, there _is_ a resemblance--at a distance!
_Mr. Toov._ (_peevishly_). Then it's annoying--very annoying; because it might compromise my poor dear wife, you know. I--I wish you could give her a quiet hint to--to avoid such places in future!
_Curph._ Do you know, Sir, I really think it will be _quite_ unnecessary.
_Mr. Toov._ Dinner, eh? Yes, yes, dinner, to be sure. Mr. CURPHEW, will you take in my dau----(_correcting himself_)--oh, but, dear me, I was quite forgetting that--h'm!----
_Curph._ ----that Mrs. TOOVEY has been expressing an ardent impatience to close your doors on me for ever?
_Mrs. Toov._ (_not over graciously_). That was before---- I mean that--considering the manner in which we all of us seem to have been more or less mixed up with the music-hall of late--we can't afford to be too particular. If Mr. WILDFIRE chooses to stay, he will find as warm a welcome as--(_with a gulp_)--he can _expect_!
_Curph._ Many thanks, but I'm sure you see that I can't stay here on sufferance. If I do stay it must be as----
_Mrs. T._ As one of the family! (_She chokes._) That--that's understood, of course. (_To herself._) They know too much!
_Mr. T._ (_to_ Mrs. T., _chirpily, as the others precede them in to dinner_). Do you know, my love, I'd no more idea you would ever have---- Well, well, it might have been worse, I daresay. But we must never let it get out about the _music-hall_, eh?
_Mrs. T._ Well, Pa, _I_'m not very likely to allude to it!
"CRYSTAL-GAZING."--The Crystal Palace Company should adapt some of Mr. ANDREW LANG'S article on "Superstition" in this month's _Fortnightly_. Far more entertaining is the Sydenham building than any amount of "Crystal-gazing," and the directors have only to say (we make them a Christmas present of the suggestion), quoting from the article above-mentioned, "it is an ascertained fact that a certain proportion of men and women, educated, healthy," &c., &c., can obtain curious information, combined with amusement, by looking into the Crystal ... Palace.
EXAMPLE OF "BURNING WORDS."--Lighting the dining-room fire with the torn pages of an old book.
"CAIRO? WHY, ONLY THE OTHER DAY YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE AS POOR AS A CHURCH MOUSE!"