The thud-thud of swiftly moving feet gave me warning as I was about to turn the corner, and I drew back to avoid a collision. An agitated figure, his breath coming in sobs, whirled past me and leaped on to a car that was leaving the car-stop; and almost at the same moment another shape shot around the corner and fell upon me. He released me at once and apologized profusely. Gazing furiously at the car, now fading in the distance, he explained the situation. “That man’s wife,” he said bitterly, “ran away from him and came to be my housekeeper, and just now, when I got home, I found him trying to make love to her. The dirty cur.” * * * * * _The clock struck nine, I looked at her,_ _Her lips were rosy red;_ _“At quarter after nine, I mean_ _To steal a kiss,” I said._ _She cast a roguish glance at me,_ _And then she whispered low_ _With quite her sweetest little smile,_ _“The clock’s like you—it’s slow.”_ _Whiz Bang Editorials_ “_The Bull is Mightier Than the Bullet._” Audrey Munson, the darling of the studios, is telling the poor but patient public what gorgeous parties some of the artists have pulled off, and speaks breathlessly of champagne baths and rose-covered stairways. It is nothing new, Audrey; the ancients, in the matter of luxury and license, could knock any of the present day sports for a row of Chinese pagodas. I have recently been engaged in reading two very interesting histories, the one of the rose, the other of the perfumes, in reading which I was deeply impressed with the fact that all the civilizations of the past, previous to their downfall, had their rose fetes, their festivals of flowers, their perfumed halls and extravagant balls and soirees. Before the fall of the Roman empire; the wealthy abandoned themselves to pleasure, luxury and licentiousness and such expressions as “living in the midst of roses” and “sleeping on a bed of roses” had a deep and tragic meaning. Seneca speaks of Smyndiride, who could not sleep if one of the rose petals with which his bed was spread, happened to be curled. Cicero alludes to the then prevailing custom among the Romans of reclining at the table on couches covered with roses. Ah, my jeweled buddies there were Adonises in those days! When Cleopatra, the perfumed serpent of the Nile, went into Cilicia to meet Mark Antony, she gave him for several successive days a festival such as the gods themselves would not blush to participate in. She had placed in the banqueting hall twelve couches large enough to hold three guests. Purple tapestry interwoven with gold covered the walls, golden vases admirably executed and enriched with precious stones, stood on a magnificent gold floor. On the fourth day the queen caused the floor of the hall to be covered with roses to the depth of eighteen inches. These flowers were retained in a very fine net to allow the guests to walk over them.