_Wednesday._--Excellent. This martial law is a wonderful thing. On Monday I had the whole of the Opposition kidnapped and sent down by one of the special Saturday trains, well guarded and labelled "Football Party," to Twickenham. The train was guaranteed to stop for some hours at every station on the way, and is not due at Twickenham till to-morrow morning. Meanwhile my Indemnity Bill went triumphantly through the House this evening, and now all is well.
_Thursday._--End of martial law. Rather a dull day on the whole.
No, dear Sir, your high calling does not excuse you from observing the rules of civility common amongst laymen when writing to the Editor of a paper which has expressed views that do not happen to accord with your own.
"Dancing was engaged in around the bonfire to the skirl of the philabeg."--_Glasgow Herald._
On reading this we immediately went round to our tailor and ordered a new pair of bagpipes.
"A change has come over the domestic habits of the French middle class. This means that the money that would have been accumulated for the girl's diary is now in some cases diverted into other channels."--_T. P's Weekly._
Probably squandered on a packet of those useless New Year's cards.
[Illustration: _Bosun_ (_to new deck hand who has trodden on his toes while hauling on a rope_). "'BEG YOUR PARDON,' INDEED! THAT'S BLOOMIN' FINE LANGUAGE TO USE TO A SHIPS BOSUN."]
_From the Editor of "The Globe Fiction Magazine" to Aubrey Aston, Esq._ _May 5th._
DEAR MR. ASTON,--We are extremely sorry that we cannot see our way to using _Red Shadows_. The idea is an excellent one, if a trifle improbable. But you must be aware that West Africa has been worse handled by fiction-writers than any other locality, and we are afraid we dare not risk publishing a story in which the writer has drawn on his imagination for local colour, however vivid that imagination may be. The West African expert at our office assures us that _Red Shadows_ contains some inaccuracies which would be bound to spring to the eye of any reader who had been near the West Coast. We cannot imperil the reputation of a magazine so widely circulated as ours, and we feel that in returning the MS. we are in some degree safeguarding your own. Thanking you for the many excellent stories you have let us have,