And spiders on the broken panes shall sit, And the grey rats shall scuttle in the basement, Until the Borough Council purchase it And cleanse and decorate, and lastly fit A fair blue _plaque_ above the study casement,
Saying, "Here lived a while and wove his spell, Eusebius Binks the bard, the unforgotten; The house is mentioned in his 'Lines to Hell,' Also the agents, Messrs. Azazel, And the then drains which, so he sang, were rotten."
_The Daily Telegraph_ says of the Portsmouth Corporation telephone system:--
"At present there are 1,899 subscribers and 2,528 distinct telephones."
Why doesn't the Post Office experiment with this new sort of telephone.
"Yet it is necessary to state emphatically, although no representative of a daily newspaper seems to have been under this impression, that not for twenty years have I been so bored."
_C.K.S. in "The Sphere," on the 'Edwin Drood' trial_.
But how are the poor reporters to know so much about C.K.S. as that?
MR. ASQUITH (_on the Riviera_). "LUCKY FOR ME THERE AREN'T ANY 'CONVERSATIONS' HERE--I MIGHT AGREE TO ALMOST ANYTHING."]
DEAR UNCLE,--Its your birthday to-day. I sent you some nice pairs of hankerchifs because its your birthday. They for your nose. Its funny our birthdays being so close. And now no more from your loving neice
MY DEAR NANCY,--Thank you very much indeed for the nice pocket-handkerchiefs. I am very pleased with them. Nobody has ever troubled to give me handkerchiefs before with pretty flowers worked in the corners. I have been wearing them to-day, or rather one of them. They are so nice that I really meant to have kept them specially for parties and things like that, but, as I was obliged to leave home in a great hurry this morning, and someone had hidden my everyday handkerchiefs, I took one of yours.
Such a funny thing has happened. I sent you for your birthday a pretty card with birds on it, and somehow or other it got taken in quite a different direction, and was returned to me this morning by--whom do you think? Auntie Maud, all the way away in Ireland. But we mustn't blame the Postmaster-General without being absolutely sure of ourselves. It is very difficult in mysterious cases like this to be absolutely sure. Didn't you get my parcel? I sent it off at the same time as I sent the card, and I haven't had the parcel back. I wonder where it is. It looks as though things were going on that you and I know nothing about. I shall be very angry with him if he has forgotten to give you your parcel.