"Francesca," I said bitterly, "you are pleased to be a rhymer. You are, in fact, rhyming while the exchequer is burning; and then you add insult to injury by asking me the meaning of an elementary financial phrase." "Well, what _does_ it mean?" "It means," I said, "that if your money is invested in public companies or things of that nature, then when your half-yearly dividend--You know what a dividend is?" "Rather," she said. "It comes in on blue paper or pink, and you say, 'That's something to be thankful for;' and you write your name on one half of it and you send that half to the bank, and you tear off the other half and lose it in the next spring-cleaning. I know what a dividend is all right." "Francesca," I said, "your knowledge is very wonderful. But if you suppose that that is the whole dividend, you are much mistaken. It is the dividend minus the tax. The company saves you trouble by deducting the tax and pays it to the CHANCELLOR for you." "Bravo the company!" said Francesca. "And so say I. You see you never get that part of your money, so there's no temptation to spend it--in fact you don't spend it." "That," she said, "sounds highly plausible." "Yes, but listen. Suppose you've got some little job at, say, two hundred and fifty pounds a year"-- "Like the little job you were so pleased to get a few years ago." "Yes," I said, "more or less like that." "Not so honourable, of course," said Francesca. "No, of course not, but similar as to emoluments. Well, in that case you get the whole amount, and you spend it in perfectly useless things and forget all about it after you've put it down in your return; and then suddenly some Surveyor of Taxes writes and demands Income Tax on those two hundred and fifty pounds, actually demands something like forty pounds. I tell you, it goes through you like a knife." "Haven't you any remedy?" "Of course I could chuck the job," I said, "or do it for nothing. Yes, I think I'll chuck it. It'll be a lesson to them." "Yes," she said, "it would probably make the Government sit up--but, on the whole, I don't think I should go so far if I were you. You see"-- "Go on," I said, for she was hesitating. "Let us strip ourselves of everything at once and throw ourselves on the charity of our neighbours." "Well," she said, "I'd go on for a bit. A job's a job even if it does make you pay. You've had L210 on balance, and you ought to be thankful to have been allowed to pay forty pounds for munitions." "And now," I said, "perhaps you'll let me get on with my work." R. C. L. * * * * * The Pull-Through: _Being a paraphrase of an answer in an O.T.C. examination._ Just one long pull, a straight strong pull--no other pull will do; A man must never take two pulls to pull the pull-through through. * * * * * Village Amenities. "The hearty congregational stinging was a feature of church life to be proud of."--_Parish Magazine._