"But how could slugs get up here?" asked Celia in surprise. "How do slugs got anywhere? They climb up the walls, or they come up in the lift, or they get blown about by the wind--I don't know. They can fly up if they like; but, however it be, when they do come, I mean to be ready for them." Still, though our slug-trap will no doubt come in usefully, it is not what we really want. What we gardeners really want is rain. A. A. M. * * * * * The Tandem. "The winner was Mr. E. Williams, on an A. J. S. machine, while, on the same machine, Mr. C. Williams finished second." _Liverpool Evening Express._ He should have insisted on the front seat at the start, and then he might have finished first. * * * * * "Wanted immediately, experienced pressers for ladies' waists." _Advt. in "Montreal Daily Star_." Don Juan, forward. * * * * * NOT TO BE CAUGHT. [Illustration: _Mathematical Master_ (_after carefully explaining new rule_). "Well, Tertius, and what is four per cent. on L5?" _Tertius._ "Ten shillings." _Mathematical Master._ "No, no." _Tertius._ "Five shillings." _Mathematical Master._ "No!" _Tertius._ "Half-a-crown." _Mathematical Master._ "Now, Tertius, it's no use guessing; just think. I'll give you half-a-minute to pull yourself together." (_After interval of half-a-minute_) "Well?" _Tertius_ (_with confidence_). "Please, Sir, there isn't one."] * * * * * DRASTIC REFORM OF SCHOOLS. Remarkable Speech. Owing to the ruthless condensation of the Parliamentary Reports in the daily Press, no mention was made of Mr. Alfred Dunstanley's motion last Thursday, under the ten-minutes rule, for leave to bring in his Bill for the Reform of Public Schools. That omission we are now able to make good, thanks to the enterprise of a correspondent who was present during the debate in the Strangers' Gallery. Mr. Dunstanley remarked that he was not prompted by any animosity to our public schools and did not propose to exterminate or annihilate them. But he was convinced that in the best interests of the nation they ought to be purged of the excrescences and anomalies which militated against their utility. The Bill accordingly provided that, pending the extinction of the hereditary peerage, peers or peers' sons, if they insisted on going to public schools, should be carefully segregated and kept in a state of perpetual coventry. It was not advisable that the healthy sons of our democracy should associate with those effete and tainted aristocrats. The Bill stopped short of sending them to the lethal chamber, but recommended that they should pay triple fees.