By Jove, what festive tints you wear, _chere_ Madame! These _fin-de-siecle_ furbelows of la dame Would scare the very simply dressed _Pere_ ADAM. On you they're charming; But when the fashion spreads to distant quarters, And far across the Channel's choppy waters They glow on England's humble, tasteless daughters, They'll be alarming. Bright blue, gay green, loud lilac, yelling yellow-- Yelling for _criard_, pray forgive a fellow For using words that time has not turned mellow-- Must not be worse made Than in your costumes, gracefully assorted. Think what these tints will be, transposed, distorted, By English laundress, flower-girl, and sported By cook or nursemaid! Our eyes! Oh, save them then with shades or goggles! For reason totters on its throne, which joggles. In choosing tints the Englishwoman boggles; "_Chacun a son gout._" You're always _comme il faut_ from boots to bonnet. For Paris, praised in song, and ode, and sonnet, Is still, as when _les Precieuses_ doated on it, "_Le centre du bon gout._" * * * * * "MERRY MARGIT!"--"I was at Margate last July," sang THOMAS BARHAM, when telling of the _Little Vulgar Boy_, and so were we, this July, for the purpose of passing a few happy hours at the renovated Cliftonville Hotel under the government of Mr. HOLLAND, vice-regent for Messrs. GORDON & CO. No need now to quit the shores of England for Antwerp, Rotterdam, or any other of the Rotterdamerung Cycle, as visitors to Margate will, on our own shore, find HOLLAND. In the menu Sauce Hollandaise is avoided, and Politesse Hollandaise is substituted, to the satisfaction of everybody. "Voila ce que l'on dit de moi Dans la Gazette de Hollande!" Which couplet the Manageress might sing, as they are words from _The Grand Dutchess_. * * * * * THE MAN MAKES THE TAILOR. (_Fragment from a Seasonable Romance._) It was towards the close of the London season of 1893 that a man in a strange garb was seen at an early hour in the East End of London. He attracted considerable attention. It was a rough part of the City, still, those who lived there were conventional in their costume. They wore black coats, and there was a certain respectability about their hats. But the man to whom we refer was eccentric in the extreme. His straw hat was worn at the back of his head, his cut-away coat was thrown open, showing a huge, collarless coloured cotton shirt. He had flannel trousers tucked into digger's boots. No one knew whence he came, whither he was going. "Have you noticed him?" asked the Inspector. "Yes, Sir," replied the Police Constable, "he's got white hands, so if he belongs to the dangerous classes, he is a smasher, or a forger, or something genteel in that line." "Well, keep your eye upon him." "I will, Sir."