_Alf._ (_rejoining his fiancée with a grimy face, a smashed hat, and a pathetic attempt at a grin_). Well? I _done_ it, you see! _Miss S._ (_crushingly_). Yes, you _have_ done it! And the best thing you can do now, is to go home and wash your face. _I_ don't care to be seen about with a _laughing-stock_, I can assure you! I've had my dignity lowered quite enough as it is! _Alf_. But look 'ere, my dear girl, I can't leave you here all by yourself, you know! _Miss S._ I daresay Mr. PERKINS will take care of me. [_Mr. P. assents, with effusion._ _Alf._ (_watching them move away--with bitterness_). I wish all Niggers were put down by Act of Parliament, I do! Downright noosances--that's what _they_ are! * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. [Illustration: Ulysses on Tour.] Ulysses has been travelling again, and the record of his journeyings is set forth in _The Modern Odyssey_, which CASSELL & Co. publish in one volume, with some charming illustrations in callotype. My Baronite notes a quaint disposition on the part of the old gentleman to begin at the very beginning. Thus, when he lands in New York, he furnishes a brief account of COLUMBUS, and how he came to discover America. The early history of Australia, and eke of China, are dealt with in the same instructive manner. This is all very well for ULYSSES, who comes fresh on the scene, and learns for the first time all about the Genoese, about Captain COOK, and how "a little more than a century ago eleven ships sailed from England," anchored in the Bay where now Sydney stands, and--strange to say!--did not find a populous city, but only green fields and a river running into the sea. _Pour nous autres_, age has somewhat withered the bloom of this story, and it might have been left peacefully slumbering in the Encyclopædias. But it can be skipped, and, for the rest, there will be found a swift succession of pictures of life and scenery in the Greater Britain that girdles the world. ULYSSES must have been much struck with the change since he first went a gipsying. But of that he discreetly says nothing. BARON DE BOOK-WORMS & Co. * * * * * WE'VE GOT OUR LYNX EYE ON HIM!--In the _Times'_ legal reports for Tuesday, July 26, 1892, Queen's Bench Division, Colonel FITZGEORGE sued a Mr. ROLLS CALVERT LINK. Mr. CANNOT defended LINK. But CANNOT Could Not do much for his client LINK, who did not appear. Evidently, "The Missing Link." * * * * * "COURT ON!" [Illustration: Stephensonius, B.C. (_date uncertain_), qui Jacobum Fidelem scripsit. (From an old Bronze Medal.)]