... It is real kind of you, dearest, to mail your own laddie those half-dozen lovely photographs, or should I call them footographs? I can't say right here which I like best--they're all just fetching, anyway. You bet, I'll treasure them _some!_ I'll wear the midget profile as a chest-protector right along, and put the full-foot vignette under my pillow nights. And the three-quarter platino shall go on my chimney rack--there's a considerable saucy look about the big toe which I'm mashed on horrid. I guess you won't see such a number-one instep as yours any time on these effete old London side-walks. To look at the Britishers' foot-cases in Piccadilly makes me tired, when I think of you any. I'll send views of mine soon in exchange, but I reckon the naked truth might give you fits, so I'll just sit with my rubbers on, and get the camera-man to map you off a walking likeness of my right daisy-crusher. (My left is a trifle out of focus.) Kind regards to you, Poppa.... * * * * * [Illustration: A BLOODTHIRSTY BARITONE. _Miss Maud._ "WON'T _YOU_ SING SOMETHING, MR. GREEN?" _The Curate._ "I HAVEN'T BROUGHT MY MUSIC. BUT, IF YOU KNOW THE ACCOMPANIMENT, AND WOULD PLAY IT, I THINK I COULD SING _'THE BRIGAND'S REVENGE'!_"] * * * * * "AN OLD OFFENDER." ["It is impossible, we fear, to escape from the conclusion that there is a substantial basis of fact for the rumours ... of atrocities perpetrated by Turkish troops on the Christian inhabitants of Armenia.... By one of the Articles of the Treaty of Berlin the Porte undertook 'to carry out without delay the improvements and reforms demanded by local requirements in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and the Kurds.'"--_"Times" Leader, December 4._] Again! Is there nothing can humanise ever The heart of Islam, that red-ravening wolf? Will bonds of convention and treaty bridge never Between Turk and Christian the broadening gulf? Will no lesson teach, and will no promise tether, The Ottoman hordes when let loose on the foe? Must slaughter, and rapine, and outrage together, The old vile triumvirate, fetterless go? Time's fool seems the Turk, stern, unteachable, savage, The fiercest fool-fighter on history's roll. All indolent rest or undisciplined ravage. The varnish of manner soaks not to his soul. Red Man of the Orient, ruthless, untamable, Neighbour, by fortune, in nothing near kin. Humanity's brotherhood surely is blameable, Leaving him free from Law's bondage to win!