SIR,--Your Correspondent, a "STIFLED INVALID," wants to know how, in these days of ill-drained and ill-ventilated lodgings, he can secure a breath of fresh sea-air without the risk of being prostrated by a local fever, or poisoned by sewer gas. His course is simple enough. He has only to do as I have done. Let him get a furniture-van (if he is a married man with a family, he will want more--I have five), and hire a traction-engine to drag him to some well-known watering-place, and deposit him on the Pier. I have tried the experiment, as yet, with every prospect of success. Here am I, with my five vans, well installed at the end of the Pier of a well-known fashionable health resort, the band playing twice a day, with the fresh air blowing all about me, and the sea surrounding me on every side. We managed to get on when the man who takes the tickets was away having his dinner. The situation is quite delightful, and but for the fact that all the local Authorities have commenced proceedings against me, and that there was a slight riot last night during an ineffectual attempt made by six-and-thirty cart-horses to move me on to the Marine Parade, I have every reason to be satisfied with the result of my experiment. I am living rent free, and, beyond the cost of a family ticket for the Pier, which, though it is disputed by the Committee, I insist gives me a right to have my vans on as well, have, as yet, been put to no expense whatever. There was a report that the Local Fire Brigade had resolved, in the event of my not moving off, to force me to do so by "pumping" me out, but I am loth to believe this. Meantime we are having some excellent fishing with a lawn-tennis net. The traction-engine is to call for me in a month. Strongly recommending my "Plan of Campaign" to a "STIFLED INVALID," I beg to subscribe myself, your obedient servant, NO LAND LUBBER. * * * * * THE NOVEL-READER'S VADE MECUM. _Question._ I believe you are a very rapid reader of fiction? _Answer._ Certainly. My average rate is three and a half volumes a day. This gives me plenty of time for meals, sleep and skipping. [Illustration: Through Booking, First-Class and otherwise.] _Q._ Do you skip a great deal? _A._ A very great deal. For instance, I have skipped about two-thirds of _Isa_, by the Editor of the _North-Eastern Daily Gazette_, in spite of it being only in a couple of volumes, and containing for an introduction the following rather lengthy sentence:--"If the devil were in a laughing mood, what could seem more grimly humorous to him than the vision of a fair young spirit striving consciously after ethereal perfection, but overweighted unconsciously by the bonds and fetters of human infirmity and passion, and dragged at last headlong down the abysmal descent to perdition?" "Abysmal" is good--very good. _Q._ Well, and what of the book itself?