* * * * * [Illustration: “READY! AYE READY!” [_See p. 113_] “READY! AYE READY!”--_Mrs. Ponsonby de Tomkyns._ “That lady was evidently intended by nature for a _Chinese_, Sir Charles! I wonder who she can be?” _Sir Charles._ “She happens to be my sister, Lady Plantagenet de la Zouche. May I ask _why_ you think nature intended her for a _Chinese_?” _Mrs. P. de T._ (_equal, as usual, to the emergency_). “She struck me as having such _exquisitely small feet_!” * * * * * DREADFUL STATE OF AFFAIRS AT MARKET HARBOROUGH.--_Lord Charles Highflyer_ (_despondently_). “There’s too much frost to hunt, and not enough ice to skate; all the horses are coughing; the gov’nor writes to say that he’s going to endow a new church; Bingo wires that all seats are booked for a fortnight at any theatre worth going to; Fanny Canterly is engaged to that ass Blinkers; I’ve a bill overdue on Tuesday; Hummingbirdie Belleville threatens an action for breach of promise; Aunt Genista hasn’t weighed in as usual; and some idiot has sent me a card with a robin on it, wishing me ‘All the Compliments of the Season!’” * * * * * [Illustration: A FRIEND IN NEED _Bobby Short._ “I say--I can’t find my partner, Miss Wilson! Have you seen her?” _Tommy Long._ “Don’t know her by sight, even! But, if you like, I’ll lift you up, and you can hunt for yourself!”] * * * * * [Illustration: _Mrs. Gusher._ “Oh, good-bye, Sir John. So sorry not to have found your most _charming_ wife at home.” _Sir John._ “Thanks--thanks! By the way, let me assure you I’ve only got _one_,--and----” [_Thinks that the remainder of the sentence is “better understood than expressed.”_] * * * * * [Illustration: _Lady of the House_ (_to Bore, who generally calls just as she is about to go shopping_). “Won’t you let me ring for a little refreshment for you?” _Bore._ “I think I’ll take a little something just before I go.” _Lady of the House._ “Oh, then, _do_ have it now!”] * * * * * [Illustration: THE BRITISH PASSION FOR INEQUALITY. _Sturdy Briton._ “It’s all very well to turn up your nose at _your own_ beggarly Counts and Barons, Mossoo. But you can’t find fault with _our_ nobility! Take a man like our Dook o’ Bayswater, now! Why, he could buy up your foreign Dukes and Princes by the dozen! and as for you and me, he’d look upon us as so much dirt beneath his feet! Now, that’s something _like_ a nobleman, _that_ is! That’s a kind o’ nobleman that I, as an Englishman, feel as I’ve got some right to be _proud_ of!”] * * * * * [Illustration: THE SERPENT’S TOOTH