So Smith _mi._ had already guessed, but none the less the prohibition came as a great disappointment to him. * * * * * "The country between the Gamana and Katsena Rivers was inhabited by Zumperi pagans, who were cannibals and lived on hill tops."--_Times._ Thus differing from some of the inhabitants of Golders Green, who are vegetarians and live on turnip-tops. * * * * * ONCE ONE. ["Caroline Cloan clawed suddenly at Slew's eyes. But for a quick movement on his part it might have been very serious. He had only one eye, and could not afford to lose the sight of it."--"_Daily Mirror" Serial._] Keen are the claws of _Carrie Cloan_, Rampant her mood. The eye of _Slew_ Is one in number; she alone, Blinded by passion, makes it two. She's out for eyes, and cannot tarry To ponder arithmetic laws. And what is the result? Miss _Carrie_ Claws _Slew_; _Slew_ slews; Miss _Carrie's_ claws Miscarry, and the eye is his. Rough on poor _Caroline_, no doubt; But there--the moral of it is, First count your eye, then have it out. * * * * * [Illustration: ACT I. _"Guvnor" (dismissing office-boy)_. "YOU'VE NEGLECTED YOUR WORK," ETC. ETC. "THAT'S MY MOTTO AND EVIDENTLY NOT YOURS. TAKE A WEEK'S NOTICE."] [Illustration: ACT II. (_a week elapses_). THE OFFICE-BOY'S FAREWELL.] * * * * * LONDON'S LINKS WITH THE PAST. When I was a child I had the signal honour of being seated upon the knee of an old lady whose great-great-great-great-uncle once shook hands with a man whose grandfather remembered seeing green fields at the spot which is now covered by Carmelite House. How short is the history of the Metropolis! Everybody, of course, is aware that Professor Joff committed one of his notorious "howlers" when he derived "Carmelite"--in the street name--from "Cromwell's Heights." The latter, needless to say, must have been a deal nearer the South Kensington Museum than Whitefriars, famed for its sanctuary. CROMWELL _may_ have wandered in the meadows (if they still existed in his day) where the 6.30 _News_ now leaps from its machines every afternoon about half-past five; he may even (as Plip and Johnstone surmise, in their ponderous tomes, _Odd Corners in London_ and _More and Odder Corners in London_) have supped at the Pig and Mortarboard, which stood on what is now the site of the Ludgate Hill station booking-office (Plip, by-the-by, wrongly says not the booking-office, but the "book_stall_," an amazing error in one usually so careful). But whatever else CROMWELL did or did not do, he certainly never gave his name to any district further east than Knightsbridge.