_Dealer._ Thin 'tis a hardy rider will dare pass the owld foxey mare now, for she'd reach out an' chew the leg off him, she's that jealous. _Farmer._ Woof! Pat Maguire is into the wather head-first an' dhrinkin' a bellyful, I'll warrant--which same will be a new sensation for him. _Dealer._ It will indeed. 'Tis a wonder he wouldn't send a lad round the course before him givin' the ditches a dash from a pocket-flask the way he'd be in his iliment should he take a toss--the thirsty poor fella! _Farmer._ The foxey mare is down on her nose an' Clancy throwing somersets all down the course. Acrobat has ut. _Dealer._ He has not. He is all bet up. He's rollin' like a Wexford pig-boat. Beau Brocade has the legs of him. _Girl in Brown (jumping up and down)._ Beau Brocade! Beau Brocade! Oh, Freddy darling! _Beggar-man (miraculously recovering his sight)._ Acrobat! Put the whip to him, ye lazy varmint! Acrobat! Och, wirra, wirra! _Dealer._ Beau Brocade has him cot. He is on his quarther. He is on his shoulder. They are neck and neck. He has him bet. Huroosh! _Farmer._ What are you hurooshin' for--you with five poun' on Acrobat? _Dealer (crestfallen)._ Och, dang it, I was forgettin'. _Girl in Brown (dancing and clapping her hands)._ Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! _Beggar-man._ ***!!! ***!!! [_Local brass band, throned in a dilapidated waggonette, explodes into the opening strains of "Garryowen."_ PATLANDER. * * * * * "The question which arises in the mind of the writer is this:--'Is Salicylic Aldehyde "C6H4<COH orthohydroxybenzaldehyde" OH the cause of the trouble?'"--_The Fruit-Grower._ It must be a dreadful thing to have a mind like that. * * * * * [Illustration: MANNERS AND MODES. THEN AND NOW. [_From an Early-Victorian pocket "Etiquette for Gentlemen."_--"During the morning hours a gentleman visitor who neither shoots, reads, writes letters nor does anything but idle about the house and chat with the ladies is an intolerable nuisance. Sooner than become the latter he had better retire to the billiard-room and practise cannons by himself."]] * * * * * TELEPHONE TACTICS. It is now some months since the great autumn offensive was conducted with the idea of biting off an awkward salient in my circumstances--in brief, of obtaining the necessary telephone to enable me to commence an ordered existence. For many, many days my voice had been unheard crying in the wilderness that I was a poor demobilised soldier, that I had once had a telephone and had given it up at my country's call, and please couldn't they give me back even my old, old telephone again? I have already told how in response to these very human appeals I at length got only a request for the balance due for calls for 1914. My old friend Time, however, worked his proverbial wonders and one day a telephone came--phit! like that.