Church. Offertory goes to _me_ to-day! Don't half like it. Feel like a schoolboy expecting to be tipped. Curate rather glum. Finds he thinks my sending the donkey to him was meant to insult him. When I assure him it wasn't, he cheers up, and says he'll hold the plate. Does so. Seems very heavy. Curate distinctly winks at me, which is against the Rubrics, no doubt, but still seems to be an augury of happy tidings about the sum collected. On his way to Vestry, Curate whispers to me "Two-fifty!" What does he mean? Is it two fifty pounds, or shillings? It's neither--it's _pence_! Really, if this is all the "loyal laity" can do, I may as well disestablish myself. Best Easter Offering of all comes by post. Offer of position as Under-Cashier in a firm of eminent Bone-boilers. Write to accept offer with thanks. Better to boil bones for other people than to have all the flesh taken off my own. * * * * * THE NEW COINAGE. Art will now adorn our purses, Hitherto an artless place; More than pictures, songs, or verses, This should elevate the race. Is it safe to be prophetic? Will the miser, once abused, Be considered quite aesthetic, With the connoisseur confused? Will the banker, grown artistic, Talk a jargon new and strange? Will this feeling, subtle, mystic, Even reach the Stock Exchange? Will it from the City banish Dress that artists should eschew? Will the hallowed "topper" vanish, And the frock-coat fade from view? Will the cabman now be willing, After driving half a mile, To accept a high-art shilling, Not with oaths, but with a smile? Will the porter at the station While his thanks pause on his lip, Gaze in silent admiration At the beauty of his tip? "Music hath," so CONGREVE stated, "Charms to soothe the savage breast"; Numismatic art is fated May be to be likewise blest. * * * * * NAILED! (_Lord Dufferin and the Gallic Vermin._) [At the Annual Dinner of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, Lord DUFFERIN took occasion to refer trenchantly, but temperately, to the long series of calumnies lately directed against him by certain sections of the French Press.] Yes, DUFFERIN, yes, the Reptile Press Is not confined to realms Teutonic. You squelch it--could you well do less?-- With an urbanity fine, ironic. France is too chivalrous, too polite, To back these crawlers, venomous, "varment"!-- But our Ambassador does quite right To--brush them lightly from his garment. * * * * * A "Plucky" Answer. _Q._ Who was PROCRUSTES? What was the Bed of PROCRUSTES? _A._ He was an ancient philosopher who never would get up in the morning. Hence the word for a person who puts off or delays; viz., "One who Procrustinates." * * * * *