["After its recent behaviour, Ecuador cannot be said to have any credit worth talking about."--_Times City Article, February 19._] Ecuador, contento? Ecuador! Ecuador! You have all our money spent O, Who will lend you more? No one here on British shore Will lend you more, Ecuador! Ecuador! * * * * * FROM H. W. L.'s SUMMARY OF THE DEBATE LAST THURSDAY IN THE _DAILY NEWS_.--"Mr. BARLOW approved the action of the Government in exempting coarser yarns from duties." This is not exactly what might have been expected from Mr. BARLOW, but no doubt Masters SANDFORD and MERTON in the Strangers' Gallery were mightily delighted at the prospect of "coarser yarns"--(which is only another name for men's stories after dinner when the ladies have left the room)--being "exempted from duties." Really our old friend, the preceptor of SANDFORD and MERTON, has deteriorated, and _Mr. Punch_ is severely against him on this point. * * * * * [Illustration: FEDERATION FOR THE SNOW-SWEEPERS. _Leader._ "NOW, DON'T FORGET, THE UNION RATE OF PAY IS FOURPENCE A DOORWAY. ANY CHAP WORKIN' FOR LESS IS A BLOOMIN' 'BLACKLEG'!"] * * * * * THE BOOT-BILLS OF NARCISSUS. AN IRRELEVANT BIOGRAPHY. (_Scraps collected by Richard Medallion._) SCRAP I.--HORTICULTURE. (_Boot-trees._) "Ah! old men's boots don't go there, Sir," said the boot-maker to me one day, rather pointedly, pointing to the toes of the boots I had brought him for mending. As I danced home, writing another chronicle with every springing step, the remark filled me with reflection--such reflection, reader, as your mirror shows you when you gaze in it to rejoice in your own beauty. [Illustration: Published at the Bodily Head. All body and precious little head.] Have you kept a diary for thirty years? Dear me! And have you kept your gas bills, your water-rates, your Christmas-cards, your writs, your circulars of summer sales? I might never have undertaken to write this biography if I had not chanced one evening--being unoccupied--to break open a private desk belonging to my friend NARCISSUS, and tearing open an envelope (sealed, and labelled "_Compromising Postcards--to be opened before my death_,") came across these old boot-bills, and been struck by the manner in which there lay revealed in them the story of the years over which they ran.... * * * SCRAP II.--THE HAPPY HOME. The first night we went to see GEORGE DONKEYSTIR we heard in the kitchen a curious voice--suggestive somehow of the vine-leaves in the hair--singing "_Ours is a Happy, Happy Home!_" In the hall we saw none but a wee boy of four, standing on his head, balancing a billiard-cue on his chin. [Illustration]