_Cox_ (_winking_). Walker! _Box._ Ah--tell me--in mercy tell me--have you such a thing as the "Strawberry Leaves" in your eye? _Cox._ No! _Box._ Then we _are_ brothers! [_They rush into each other's arms._ _Cox._ Of course, we stop where we are? _Box._ Of course! _Cox._ For between you and me, I'm rather partial to the House. _Box._ So am I--I feel quite at home in it. _Cox._ Everything so clean and comfortable! _Box._ And I'm sure its Mistress, Mrs.--ahem!--from what little _I've_ seen of her, is very anxious to do her best. _Cox._ So she is--and I vote, Box, that we stand by her! _Box._ Agreed! (_winks._) There's my hand upon it--join but yours--agree that the House is big enough to hold us both, then Box---- _Cox._ And Cox---- _Both._ Are satisfied! [_Curtain._ * * * * * FACT, OR FUNK? SIR,--Will you permit me to protest against the shocking insecurity of life and property in London? What are the Police doing? Only yesterday I was walking, _in the middle of the day_, in a rather quiet road in this suburb, when a _highway robber_, disguised as an ordinary beggar, asked me for a copper! His look was _most forbidding_, and he put his hand under his coat in a way that convinced me he was about to _draw a revolver_! I at once gave him my purse, with half-a-crown in it, which seemed to pacify him, and I am convinced that I owe my life to my _presence of mind_. The shock, however, has quite prostrated me, and my medical adviser has already paid me _three visits_, on the strength of it, and says I need "careful watching for some time." He has very kindly put off a holiday, in order to watch me, which is sufficient to prove what a _diabolical outrage_ I have been the victim of! Yours, indignantly, _Cozynook, Sydenham._ TABITHA GRUNDY. DEAR MR. PUNCH,--We are coming to a really awful state of things in the Strand! A friend of mine (who does not wish his name mentioned) assures me that he was proceeding from the Gaiety Restaurant, where he had been lunching, towards Charing Cross, when he was "attacked by VERTIGO" in broad day-light! Comment is needless. If dangerous foreign bandits like this VERTIGO--who from his name must be an Italian--are permitted to plunder innocent pedestrians with impunity, the sooner we abolish our Police Force and save the expense, the better. NO ALARMIST.