Have on the whole a very good time. Looked after by RUSTEM ROOSE, whose cure is as alluring as it is infallible. "Eat, drink and sleep," he says. "Lie on your back and sedulously do nothing." So whilst they storm and fret at Westminster, here, in hollow Lotos Land we live and lie reclining. Pleasant to hear RUSTEM ROOSE's voice as he goes his morning rounds, stethoscope in hand. "A long breath, dear friend: say '74; Pommery, certainly if you like; a pint at luncheon and a roast chicken. Turn over, dear friend; another long breath; say '80; de Lanson, of course, if you prefer it; a pint at dinner with a fried sole and a porterhouse steak; or, if you are tired of champagne, take a pint of claret with a glass or two of port. A long breath, dear friend; say '50; three glasses if '50 port won't do you any harm." Worst of it is we're all getting better, and shall be back to the grind at Westminster after Whitsuntide. _Business done_.--All taking long breaths. * * * * * THE DIS-ORDER OF THE DAY.--In the House of Commons on the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury, it was resolved that Influenza, M.P., be expelled. Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Leader of the Opposition, _pro tem._, moved to amend the Resolution by adding "at once." This was agreed to _nem. con._ The Serjeant-at-Arms was thereupon ordered to remove Influenza. He declined on the ground that if he did he might catch it. After some conversation the debate was adjourned. Influenza left sitting on Members generally.--_Extract from the Fifteenth of May's Parliamentary Report_. * * * * * A PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS! (_BY A PERPLEXED READER OF THE PENNY PAPERS._) [Illustration] When you're lying awake, with a horrid headache (to adopt a suggestion of GILBERT's), When too freely you've dined, or too heavily wined, or munched too many walnuts or filberts; When your brain is a maze, and creation a haze, then each queer social craze--there are many!-- Gets your wits in a spool, and there isn't a fool for your thoughts would advance you a penny. You can't sleep a wink, so the question of Drink, though you timidly shrink from it, harries you. Your wit's in a whirl, as you think, if some girl with a _penchant_ for you, ups and marries you. And ties you for life to the thing called a Wife,--that figment, that fraud, that illusion, Where, _what_ will you be? And you can't find a key to the epoch's chaotic confusion. It seems Local Option is sure of adoption, and what a tyrannic majority May "opt" for one day, you're unable to say, and in vain you appeal to Authority. The Law of the Land is a labyrinth grand, which you can't understand, nor can anyone, And _that_ is a thought, with delirium fraught, an appalling, if 'tis not a penny one.