"The very thing!" he murmured. "If I can but get him to read this he will be saved." Then turning to his patient he continued, "You should peruse this novel. It is one that I recommend in cases such as yours." "I am afraid I am past reading," returned the invalid. "However, I will do my best." An hour later the Doctor (who had had to make some calls) returned and found that his patient was sleeping peacefully. The first volume of _Douglas the Doomed One_ had the desired result. "Excellent, excellent," murmured the medico. "It had the same effect upon another of my patients. The crisis is over! He will now recover like the other. Insomnia has been conquered for the second time by _Douglas the Doomed One_, and who now shall say that the three-volume novel of the amateur is not a means of spreading civilisation? It must be a mine of wealth to somebody." And Messrs. BINDING AND PRINT, had they heard the Doctor's remark, would have agreed with him! * * * * * All the Difference. "THE SPEAKER then called Mr. LITTLE to order." Quite right in our wise and most vigilant warder. He calls us to order! Oh that, without fuss, The SPEAKER could only call Order to us! * * * * * [Illustration: RES ANGUSTA DOMI. (_In a Children's Hospital._) "MY PORE YABBIT'S DEAD!" "HOW SAD!" "DADDA KILLED MY PORE YABBIT IN BACK KITCHEN!" "OH DEAR!" "I HAD TATERS WIV MY PORE YABBIT!"] * * * * * "A LITTLE TOO PREVIOUS!" ["I desire to submit that this is a very great question, which will have to be determined, but upon a very different ground from that of the salaries of the officers of the House of Lords.... If there is to be a contest between the House of Lords and the House of Commons, let us take it upon higher ground than this."--_Sir William Harcourt._] There was a little urchin, and he had an old horse-pistol, Which he rammed with powder damp and shots of lead, lead, lead; And he cried "I know not fear! I'll go stalking of the deer!" For this little cove was slightly off his head, head, head. This ambitious little lad was a Paddy and a Rad, And himself he rather fancied as a shot, shot, shot; And he held the rules of sport, and close season, and, in short, The "regulation rubbish" was all rot, rot, rot. He held a "bird" a thing to be potted on the wing, Or perched upon a hedge, or up a tree, tree, tree; And, says he, "If a foine stag I can add to my small bag, A pistol _or_ a Maxim will suit me, me, me!" And so upon all fours he would crawl about the moors, To the detriment of elbows, knees, and slack, slack, slack; And he says, "What use a-talking? If I choose to call this 'stalking,' And _I bag my game_, who's going to hould me back, back, back?"