To see so strange and sad a sight Quidnuncs and _gobemouches_ ran, And swore the dog was rabid quite To bite that Grand Old Man. [Illustration] The wound indeed seemed sore and sad To every party eye, And while they swore the dog was mad, They swore the man must die. [Illustration] But marvels sometimes come to light Rash prophets to belie. The man seems healing of the bite, The dog looks like to die! * * * * * Remarkable Conversion. "CANON TEIGNMOUTH SHORE proposes to convert the two Convocations." ... that is startling without the context--"into one National Synod." But two into one won't go. How will he manage it? Will those in the York ship join the Canterbury, or _vice versâ_? Or, quitting both ships, will they land on common ground? "Who's for SHORE?" * * * * * PAR ABOUT PICTURES.--"_Over the Garden Wall_," seems to be the song that Mr. G.S. ELGOOD sings at the Fine Art Society's Gallery. In the course of his travels he has been over a good many garden walls. At Wroxton, Compton Wynyates, Penshurst, Montacute, Berkeley, and Helmingham, he has pursued his studies to some purpose; the result is an enjoyable collection of pictures, which he entitles, "A Summer among the Flowers." * * * * * BRUSTLES' BISHOP. (_BY A MUDDLED MORALIST._) CHAPTER I. BEN BRUSTLES was only a poor shoeblack-boy who cleaned boots--ay, and even shoes, for his daily bread. Such time as he could spare from his avocation he devoted to diligent study of the doctrine of chance, as exemplified in the practice of pitch-and-toss. Often and often, after pitching and tossing in the cold wet streets for long weary hours, he would return home without a halfpenny. Think of this, ye more fortunate youths, who sit at home at ease, and play Loto for nuts! But through all his vicissitudes, BEN kept a stout heart, never losing his conviction that something--he knew not what--would eventually turn up. Sometimes it was heads, at others tails: and in either case the poor boy lost money by it--but he persevered notwithstanding, confident that Fortune would favour him at last. It is this spirit of undaunted enterprise that has made our England what it is! [Illustration: Brustles Blacking.] And one day Fortune did favour him. He observed, as he knelt before his box, a portly and venerable person close by, who was engrossed in studying, with apparent complacency, his own reflection in a plate-glass shop-front. So naïve a display of personal vanity, in one whose dress and demeanour denoted him a Bishop, not unnaturally excited BENJAMIN's interest, nor was this lessened when the stranger, after shaking his head reproachfully at his reflected image, advanced to the shoe-black's box as if in obedience to a sudden impulse. "My lad," he said, with a certain calm dignity, "will you be so good as to black both my legs for me--at once?"