_your own wits_ on this business; Party debate will addle your pate, _ex-parte_ "facts" bring dizziness. Look for yourself, and you'll save much pelf, and good value get for your money, Squelch party fudge, be your own best judge, and you'll floor the croakers, JOHNNY! Still, JOHNNY mine, on my breadths of brine, you must keep first place, or perish. 'Tis with that thought you have paid and fought, and that thought you still must cherish. Better plank down your last half-crown, than lose the Crown _I_ gave you, Let gold _and_ blood flow in full flood, than let the foe enslave you! A rhyme, a rhyme for the Christmas time! It may not, JOHN, sound jolly, But to pipe and dance _whilst your foes advance_, were the maddest sort of folly. With pockets full Peace's pipe to pull, or to sip your grog and slumber, Is nice; but you'll wake to a huge mistake _if your foes your Fleet outnumber_! Get your Fleet, old man, _cheap_ if you can, but at all costs _get your Fleet_, JOHN! Ships, guns and crew more than any two of the foes you are like to meet JOHN! Take your old friend's tip, let _no_ chance slip, and be foiled by _no_ pretence, JOHN; Keep eye on the foe, build all you know, and big big D the expense, JOHN! * * * * * OUR BARTERERS. BICYCLE.--Thoroughly heavy, lumbering, out-of-date machine, recently doctored up to look like new, for sale. Cost, second-hand, six years ago. £4. Will take £12 for it. Bargain. Would suit a dyspeptic giant, or a professional Strong Man in want of violent exercise. SAFETY CYCLE.--Pneumatic tyres. A real beauty. Makers well known in Bankruptcy Court. Owner giving up riding in consequence of the frame being thoroughly unsafe, and the tyres constantly bursting. Would exchange for one of BROADWOOD'S grand pianos or a freehold house in the country. TURKEY CARPET.--Never used, as seller is not an absolute fool. Wretched condition guaranteed. As it has been kept for a year or two in a mouldy attic at a second-hand furniture shop, it is simply teeming with moths, but it is confidently anticipated that it will not fall to pieces in time for a purchaser to detect the fraud. Price, only double that of a first-rate new carpet of same kind. RARE OPPORTUNITY.--A ten-pound note will buy my genuine Spiderette Arabesque Dunmow Beestof a Patent Safety Tricycle. Weighs only sixteen ounces. Seventy-four championships won on it, including that of Sierra Leone. Runs away up-hill. Impossible to stop it down-hill. Folds into a small biscuit tin. Every part equally fragile. A collar-bone and six ribs broken off it in one week's practise. Made at Coventry, and ought to be sent there. First applicant has it. * * * * * [Illustration: "A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA."