_Madame France._ Obviously, Monsieur! Are they not dealt with in separate Conventions? _Mr. Bull._ Ah! if all quarrels--I beg pardon, political problems--could as easily be settled by a Conventional Act! _Madame France._ How welcome to you, Monsieur, to all parties in your Parliament, to the "rescuers" as to the "retirers," to your Lord CHAMBERLAIN, as well as to your Grand Old GLADSTONE, must be the prospect of an early, not to say immediate withdrawal from the Land of the Pharaohs! Surely the fugitive Israelites of old never left it with such pleased promptitude as _you_ will--"scuttle out" of it! Have I accurate memory of the Beaconsfieldian phrase, Monsieur? _Mr. Bull._ Your memory, Madam, is miraculous. The forty centuries--_or, however, many more there may happen to be there at the moment of my departure_--will doubtless, in the words of your own great phraser, "look down from the Pyramids" with emotions not less marked than my own--and yours, Madam. _Madame France._ My emotions at the present moment--and yours, I hope, Monsieur--are simply of supreme joy at the so happy removal of difficulties and the so complete restoration of amity between us by this charming Convention, so satisfactory in its actual terms, so much more so _in its promises for the future_. I felicitate you, dear Monsieur BULL. _Mr. Bull._ And I, Madam, reciprocate your felicitations. (_Aside._) It pleases her, apparently, and I do not see that it can possibly hurt me! [_Left bowing._ * * * * * [Illustration: CONVENTION-AL POLITENESS. JOHN BULL. "DELIGHTED, MY DEAR MADAM! IT PLEASES YOU, AND--(_Aside_)--IT DOESN'T HURT _ME_!!"] * * * * * [Illustration: SPEEDING THE PARTING GUEST. _Host (who has trod on the Lady's Skirt)._ "OH! FORGIVE ME! YOU SEE IT'S MY NATURAL INSTINCT TO DETAIN YOU!"] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. "_My Autobiography and Reminiscences_," by W. P. FRITH, R.A. The Modern Hogarth, painter of "_Ramsgate Sands_," "_The Derby Day_," and "_The Road to Ruin_," can use his pen as well as his pencil. "Where got thou that goose-quill?" as _Macbeth_ would have said, had SHAKSPEARE wished him to do so. How is it that Mr. FRITH has never employed his goose-quill before? Sometimes it is soft-nibbed, and occasionally hard-nibbed, but it is almost always well pointed; and, though he writes with an overflowing pen--for he frequently has to check his impulsive waywardness--yet there is scarcely a blot on the paper throughout the two volumes.