Cats of the town, a shameless crew, Over the way he sees Propitiate with lavish purr An unresponsive customer, Or, meek with sycophantic fur, Caress the children's knees. But he, betrothed to etiquette, Betrays nor head nor heart; Lone as the Ark on Ararat, A monument of fur and fat, Decorum and the butcher's cat Are seldom far apart. * * * * * "It was Horace that put in print the old truth that no man in this world is satisfied with the lot which either fortune or others have put him to."--_"T. P." in his "Weekly."_ HORACE, of course, was always rushing into print. * * * * * "Her hands dropped to her side. She toyed with the little locket on the gold chain at her throat. 'I am capable of anything!' she said."--_"Daily Mirror" Serial._ Evidently. * * * * * [Illustration: _Keeper_ (_who, unobserved, has been watching the transgressor_). "Ay, man, ye _hae_ a conscience, but it's gae elastic, I'm thinkin'."] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._) MR. HENRY HOLIDAY'S _Reminiscences of my Life_ (HEINEMANN) will show you a kindly simple soul who had an extraordinarily nice time, met all kinds of interesting folk, and had a generous devotion to any number of unpopular causes, such as Women's Suffrage, the futuristic socialism of BELLAMY'S _Looking Backward_, Home Rule in Ireland, healthy and artistic dress, good music, the abolition of war. Whatever capacity of expression his successful and not undistinguished career as a painter (amongst other things, of BEATRICE cutting DANTE on the bridge), stained-glass worker and mural decorator proves him to have had in his proper medium, the gift of pointed literary expression and appropriate selection seems to have been withheld from him. But he has little reason to complain. Some, at least, of his causes are appreciably nearer victory than when he espoused them; we are even a little nearer looking backwards. One small point in these discursive memoirs will especially delight the mildly cynical--that this worthy pre-Raphaelite, who with his friends had suffered so much from the limitations of view of a mid-Victorian Royal Academy, should be so maliciously ready to have all modern rebels in paint, their milestones hung about their necks, sunk in the nethermost deeps with all their works! One can find diversion, too, in the decorous story of Mr. HOLIDAY'S nude statue of _Sleep_, rejected (according to a message from G. F. WATTS) on account of its nudity in 1879 by that same Academy, and accepted in 1880 when the artist with laborious modesty had modelled for it a plaster-of-paris nightgown. The author claims some share, through the Healthy and Artistic Dress Union, in the changes towards rational beauty which women's dress has lately shown.