_A._ Promptly catch the whooping-cough, the influenza, or measles. You will then afford a sufficient reason for extending the length of your vacation indefinitely. * * * * * [Illustration: A TERRIBLE TURK. _Little Spinks._ "AH! ONCE I WAS AS INNOCENT AS A LITTLE CHILD! WHAT I AM _NOW_, YOUR SEX HAS MADE ME!"] * * * * * NOBLE SELF-SACRIFICE. "The Duke of DEVONSHIRE has arranged to return from Monte Carlo on Saturday," so said the _Morning Post_, "in order to address a political meeting at Glasgow on April 14th." His Grace having torn himself away from delightful Monte Carlo, will then attempt to turn the tables on the _Liberales Gladstonienses_. But fancy renouncing sunny Mount Charles--"O Charley Mount is a pleasant place," as sang _Miles na Coppaleen_, who was, by the way, miles away from Monte Carlo--with its azure sky, its deep blue sea, its verdant green-cloth table land, its delightful _promenades a pied_, and its frisky _gambols a la roulette_, where the sunset and sunrise are _rouge_, and _noir_ is only "on the cards." Fancy renouncing these gay southern delights to live a laborious day in dry, hard, northern Glasgow! "O swallow, swallow, flying, flying South," how would you like to be checked in your holiday-making airy career in order to be brought back to the cold and cruel North? Such a self-sacrifice as this is indeed memorable. * * * * * LOVE BY THE SEA. WIND N.E. BY E. "We do not speak as we pass by!" But tears down trickle from our eye! Alas! Our love remains untold---- For each has got a thundering cold! * * * * * BOOKS THAT OUGHT TO APPEAR. _I Banish the Street Organs!_ By the Author of _I Forbid the Banns!_ _A Boy's Present._ (Birthday Book.) By the Author of _A Girl's Past_. No. 1 of _The Domestic Lyre_, as a Companion to _The Family Storyteller_. * * * * * YET THEY LOOK SO INNOCENT!--In the Language of Flowers, what species should always express untruths?--Li-lies. * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.