_Little Girl_ (_unmoved_). "Oh, _that's_ why it's called a drop three, Mr. Brown!"]
[Illustration: _Photographer_ (_on tour, absent-mindedly_). "Now smile, please!"]
AT THE CELESTIAL RESTAURANT.--_Customer_ (_indignantly_). Hi! waiter, what do you call this soup?
_Waiter_ (_meekly_). I not know, sir, but ze padrone tell me to describe 'im Cockstail!
[Illustration: _Traveller_ (_snap-shotting tropical river, suddenly confronted by hippopotamus_). "Just keep like that one moment, please!" (_Rapturously_) "Such a delightful expression!"]
NOTE BY OUR TRAVELLER--At a station on the Elham Valley Line, "Kentish Pianos" are advertised. Are these adapted for playing only dance tunes, and therefore specially serviceable in a "Hop" county?
Must really decide where to go for five or six days at Easter. Weather always awful. Usual Springtime. North-east wind, frost, snow and dust. Something like last week. Can't stop in London. One Sunday or Bank Holiday in London mournful enough. But four of them consecutively! Impossible!
Innocent persons go to the south coast of England, thinking that fifty miles nearer the equator one is in quite a different climate. Bournemouth? Bosh! All sandy dust and depressing invalids. Torquay? Twaddle! Probably rain all the time, if not snow. England no good. Scotland or Ireland? Worse!
Must go, as people say vaguely, "abroad." How about Paris? North-east wind, frost, snow and dust, worse than here. Streets windy, theatres draughty, cafés and restaurants suffocating. Brussels? Nothing but rain. Aix-les-Bains? Probably snow. Nice? That might do. No frost or snow, but very likely a north-east wind and certainly lots of dust. Besides, thirty hours' journey out and thirty hours' journey back, would only leave about sixty hours there. No good. Rome, Seville, Constantinople, Cairo? Still farther. Should have to leave on the return journey before I arrived. Where can I go to at Easter to be warm and comfortable, without so much trouble? I know. To bed!
REGARDLESS OF THE TEMPERATURE.--_Facetious Australian_ (_off Calshot Castle, to indisposed friend_). What arm of the sea reminds one of a borrowed boot?
_The "I. F."_ (_feebly_). Give it--anything--up.
_F. A._ Why, the _Sole-lent_, to be sure.