This sight seemed to infuriate our manager. He made a wild dart at BABY, saying, "Oh, look at this; it's fatal, positively fatal!" snatched violently at the bag, secured a chestnut, and calmly walked out of the room eating it and saying it was delicious. I had just come home from a very nice drive with JACK--I mean Captain MASHINGTON--when I found a letter from ORIEL. He says he is engaged to Miss TOOGOOD. The matter is to be kept a profound secret for the present.... He asks me, _for the sake of the past_, to try and get him a stamp of the Straits Settlements, in exchange for a Mauritian.... She collects stamps too--it must have been the bond of union.... How fickle men are! It's enough to disgust one with human nature. I know I broke it off, but still---- Ever your loving friend, GLADYS. I wonder if Miss TOOGOOD will have a bangle. I should like to advise her not to have it _rivetted on_. It's such a bother getting them filed off. * * * * * [Illustration: "BUT OH, IT WAS SUCH AN 'ORRIBLE TAIL!"] * * * * * MRS. PROWLINA PRY. You hope you don't intrude? PROWLINA PRY You do, you _do_! In ignorance it may be, The _rôle_ of RHADAMANTHUS you would try, With scarce the fitness of a bumptious baby. With folly's headlong haste you would rush in Where well-tried wisdom treads with fear and trembling. Gregarious Silliness would cope with Sin; But when geese swarm what comes of _such_ assembling? Cackle, and cant, and chaos! Needless noise, Meddling and mischief and sheer moral muddle! Reformers must not act like gutter-boys Who rake up mud, stir each malodorous puddle. Life's purlieus are defiled; will it avail To grub and rake in reeking slum and by-way, Until the foul infection loads the gale, And pestilence stalks boldly in the highway? PROWLINA PRY, your purview is too small; Life is not plumbed by microscopic peeping, And Nature is too large for nursery-thrall. The globe is _not_ in Mrs. GRUNDY'S keeping. Clear sense, and not lop-sided sentiment, Must front Society's perplexing puzzles; Humanity, when roused, has ever rent _Partington_ policies of mops and muzzles. Humanity is a most complex thing, Not simple as a gag or feeding-bottle. You, lest it stray, would rob it of its wing. Lest it feed ill would simply close its throttle. The Puritanic plan in a new guise!-- A female _Praise-God-Barebones_ now would rule us. We Britons, who have baffled our male _Prys_, Are little like to let she-ones befool us.