QUEER QUERIES.--HYMENEAL.--I have been asked to attend the wedding of a friend, and respond to the toast of "The Ladies." I have never done such a thing before, and feel rather nervous about it. My friend says that I must "try and be very comic." I have thought of one humorous remark--about the "weaker sex" being really stronger--which I fancy will be effective, but I can't think of another. Would _one_ good joke of that sort be sufficient? _À propos_ of the lady marksman at Bisley, I should like to advise all ladies to "try the Butts," only I am afraid this might be taken for a reference to the President of the Divorce Division. How could I work the Jackson case in neatly? Would it be allowable to pin my speech on the wedding-cake, and read it off? Also, could I wear a mask? Any hints would be welcomed by--BEST MAN. * * * * * NOT QUITE POLITE.--The Manager of the Shaftesbury Theatre advertises "three distinct plays at 8·15, 9·15, and 10." Distinct, but not quite clear. Anyhow, isn't it rather a slur on other Theatres where it implies the plays, whether at 8·15, 9·15, or 10, are "indistinct." * * * * * SOME CIRCULAR NOTES. _Prospect of Holiday--An Entrée--A Character in the Opening--Light and Leading--French Exercise--Proposition--Acceptation--Light Comedian--Exit--Jeudi alors--The Start_. CHAPTER I. I am sitting, fatigued, in my study. I have not taken a holiday this year, or last, for the matter of that. Others have; I haven't. Work! work! work!--and I am wishing that my goose-quills were wings ("so appropriate!" whisper my good-natured friends behind their hands to one another), so that I might fly away and be at rest. To this they (the goose-quills, not the friends) have often assisted me ere now. Suddenly, as I sit "a-thinking, a-thinking," my door is opened, and, without any announcement, there stands before me a slight figure, of middle height, in middle age, nothing remarkable about his dress, nothing remarkable about his greyish hair and close-cut beard, but something very remarkable about his eyes, which sparkle with intelligence and energy; and something still more remarkable about the action of his arms, hands, and thin, wiry fingers, which suggests the idea of his being an animated semaphore worked by a galvanic battery, telegraphing signals against time at the rate of a hundred words a minute, the substantives being occasionally expressed, but mostly "understood,"--pronouns and prepositions being omitted wholesale.