_Miss T._ Poppa, don't you wonder what CHARLEY's doing just now? I'd like to know if he's found anyone yet to feel an interest in the great Amurrcan Novel. It's curious how interested people do get in that novel, considering it's none of it written, and never will be. I guess sometimes he makes them believe he means something by it. They don't understand it's only CHARLEY's way! _Miss P._ The crush isn't quite so bad now. Mr. PODBURY, if you will kindly ask your friend not to hold on to our gondola, we should probably be better able to turn. (CULCHARD, _who had fondly imagined himself undetected, takes his hand away as if it were scorched._) Now we can get away. (_To Gondolier._) Voltiamo, se vi piace, prestissimo! [_The gondola turns and departs._ _Miss T._ Well, I do just enjoy making PRENDERGAST girl perfectly wild, and that's a fact. (_Reflectively._) And it's queer, but I like her ever so much all the time. Don't _you_ think that's too fonny of me, Mr. CULCHARD, now? [_CULCHARD feigns a poetic abstraction._ * * * * * [Illustration: OVER TIME IN LEAP YEAR.] * * * * * ONLY FANCY! [Illustration: Only Fancy!] We are supplied by our special reporter with some interesting and significant facts in connection with the last Cabinet Council. Lord SALISBUY arrived early, walking over from the Foreign Office under cover of an umbrella. The fact that it was raining may only partly account for this manoeuvre. Lord CROSS arrived in a four-wheeled cab and wore his spectacles. Lord KNUTSFORD approached the Treasury walking on the left hand side of the road going westward, whilst Lord CRANBROOK deliberately chose the pavement on the other side of the way. This is regarded as indicating a coolness between the Colonial Office and the Council of Education. Lord HALSBURY alighted from a bus at the bottom of Downing Street, accomplishing the rest of the journey on foot. He wore a new suit of the latest fashionable cut and a smile. Mr. STANHOPE, approaching Downing Street from the steps, started violently when he caught sight of a figure on the steps of the Treasury fumbling with the door-handle. He thought it was "VETUS," but recognising the Home Secretary, advanced without further hesitation. Lord GEORGE HAMILTON walked arm-in-arm as far as the door with Sir M. HICKS-BEACH. Here they were observed to hastily relieve themselves from contiguity and enter in single file. As they had up to that moment been engaged in earnest conversation, this little incident caused a sensation among the crowd looking on. The new Chief Secretary was easily recognised as he descended from his hansom with a sprig of shamrock in his coat and another of shillelagh in his right hand. Whilst waiting for change out of eighteenpence he softly whistled "_God Save Ireland_." Mr. RITCHIE did not appear, pleading influenza. Our reporter informs us that there is more behind, and that before