_Footinitt_ (_energetically helping at bazaar_). “Won’t you put in for a raffle for this cushion?” _Visitor._ “Oh, no, thanks.” _Footinitt._ “Of course it’s rather useless and gaudy, and so forth; and personally I think the design’s rotten. But _do_ put in for it.” _Visitor._ “No, thanks. I made it!”] * * * * * [Illustration: MOST CONSIDERATE _Mrs. Snobbington._ “We had meant to call long before this, really, but with the best intentions, somehow, we always kept _putting off the evil day_.”] * * * * * [Illustration: INCONVENIENCE OF MODERN MALE ATTIRE _First Stranger._ “Here--hi! I want a knife and fork, please!” _Second Stranger._ “Con-found you--so do I!”] * * * * * [Illustration: _Visitor._ “I’ve just been to make my first call on Mrs. Johnson.” _Lady of the House._ “So glad, dear. Poor thing, she’s glad to know _anyone_!”] * * * * * [Illustration: “Oh yes, Sir Gus, my husband’s as well as ever, thank you, and hard at work. I’ve had to copy out his pamphlet on Bi-metallism _three times,_ he alters it so! Ah, it’s no sinecure to be married to a man of genius. I often envy your dear wife!”] * * * * * THE SOCIETY SWEAR [“Among upper-class women the use of bad language is awful; not only do elderly dowagers say ‘D--n!’ but girls of seventeen make use of that deplorable expression.”--_A correspondent to the Daily Express._] The age is unmistakably profane; Morality, like trade, is on the wane: Of late with most profound regret I’ve heard How that a certain naughty little word, Quite impolite, and quite unparliament’ry too, Once vulgar, now’s affected by the gentry too. From common oaths my tender spirit shrinks, I foozle when I hear them on the links; The cabby’s curse my moral system shocks, I shudder when I hear it from the box; But that which on the raw more sorely touches is The swear that’s used by dowagers and duchesses. When in the case of nobly-bred adults Age and experience yield these sad results, What wonder if their daughters (pretty lambs!) Indulge at times in copying their dams? (A “play ’po’ words” which serves to render printable That which, writ otherwise, would be but hintable.) Is this profanity a passing phase Like Pigs-in-clover, or the Ping-pong craze? Will it revert to “Goodness me!” or “Blow!”? I cannot tell you, for I do not know; This I do know: a nation grave disaster risks That lets its women talk in ----s and * * * * * * * * [Illustration: _Party_ (_who, of course, doesn’t think himself good-looking_). “Really, Clara, I can’t think how you can make a pet of such an ugly brute as an Isle of Skye terrier!”]