"I'll have it," I said feverishly. "Put it aside for me at once. This is really a most remarkable piece of luck." "Yes, Sir. Anything else?" "Yes," I said. "I'll have a sugar-sifter, too. Any sugar-sifter will do. I'm only doing it as a concession." "Yes, Sir. Where shall I send them?" I gave the address with great gusto, and when I reported the result of my labours at home I said nothing about the little candlestick. The mere joy of having bought it was enough for me. Thus George Henderson received from us his fifth inkstand and his seventh sugar-sifter. He wrote and said that they were the two things he had most been wishing for. R. C. L. * * * * * "He looked at her with infinite gentleness. 'I know all about it,' he said. She covered her face with her hands and cried brokenly. But, coming closer, he put both hands on her shoulders, and lifted her tea-stained face to his."--_Tasmanian Courier Annual._ Tea merchants are invited to compete for the advertisement. * * * * * "Hodgkins, however; drew ahead, and finally won as stated, the scores being: Hodgkins, 400; Sunderland, 367. The winner's best breaks were 24 and 17 (twice), and the doser's 32, 25, and 20." _Sporting Life._ He should have made the dose stronger. * * * * * [Illustration: _Dog Pincher (to possible purchaser)._ "I WOULDN'T SELL 'IM FOR FIFTY QUID, ONLY THEY DON'T ALLOW NO DAWGS IN OUR FLATS AT MALLABY MANSIONS."] * * * * * FARES. "Is that you, Herbert?" I said in surprise. It was. Strange how machinery can influence a man. The last time I had seen Herbert he was a rubicund cheerful gardener. He was now a London taxi-driver, with all the signs of that mystery on him: the shabbiness, the weariness, the disdain. "Are you glad you gave up gardening?" I asked him. "Can't say I am now," he replied. "There's more money in this, but the work's too hard. I miss my sleep, too." "You can always go back," I said. "I wonder," he replied. "I'd like to. This being at every one's beck and call who happens to have a shilling is what I'm tired of." "What about tips?" I asked. "I get plenty of them," he said. "In fact, if the clock registers tenpence or one and fourpence or one and tenpence I practically always get the odd twopence. That's all right. It's the people who don't want to tip but daren't not do it that I can't stand. And there are such lots of them. That's what makes taxi-drivers look so contemptuous like--the tips. People think we want the tips; but there's a time when we'd rather go without them than get them like that." I sympathised with him.