perfection of "alltogetherishness" on your lyric stage as the Force
voluntarily maintains--in its own interests, and obedient to its own
peculiar _esprit de corps_?

_Mr. P._ (_with significance_). Not exactly!

* * * * *

MANY HAPPY RETURNS!

(_PUNCH TO MADAME LA RÉPUBLIQUE._)

["The Republic attains its majority to-morrow (Sept. 4). It
is the first Government since the Revolution which has had a
twenty-first birthday."--_The Times_.]

Dear Madam, "Perfidious Albion" proffers
The best birthday wishes good feeling can shape!
A snap of the fingers for cynical scoffers!
A fig for the framers of venomous jape.
May Peace and Goodwill be your lasting possession,
Your proud "Valour" tempered by "years of discretion!"

* * * * *

HYGEIA OFF THE SCENT.--It is stated that even the charms of a
champagne luncheon failed to attract more than one out of twenty-four
members of the Hygienic Congress invited to test the merits of
sewage-farms by ocular--or should we say _nasal_?--demonstration.
Perhaps the missing three-and-twenty thought that in this case, at