ANSWER.--This is not a general information bureau, but we will do our best. (1) Conjunctivitis is properly a disease of the eyes; "psychical conjunctivitis" would be a sort of mental squint. "Katzenjammer" is the German for "hot coppers." "Cephaloedematous" is not in the New Oxford Dictionary, but apparently applies to a sufferer from swelled head. HOKUSAI was a Japanese artist, and "asininity" is the special quality of the writer of the article from which you have taken these words. (2) "Scooping" is the vulgarisation of the portamento, (3) Operatic singers grow stout because they drink stout; also because much singing tends to expand the larynx, pharynx and thorax, as well as the basilico-thaumaturgic cavities of the medulla oblongata. (4) There is nothing criminal in preferring the cornet to any other wind instrument. Many pious people prefer MARIE CORELLI to MILTON. * * * * * THE DOUBLE LIFE. When Araminta said that I must speak to the man next door about his black cat, I was greatly perturbed. It appeared that the animal had acquired the habit of spending the night in our house, and that Harriet didn't like it. I said that black cats brought good luck, and, anyhow, by night all cats were grey. Araminta replied that this one was as black as a bilberry and took fish. Walking out into the garden I began to meditate deeply. Perhaps you do not immediately grasp what a terrible and dangerous thing it was that Araminta had requested me to do. Between next door neighbours in the area of Greater London there subsist relations of an infinite delicacy. They resemble the bloom upon a peach. They combine a sense of mutual confidence and esteem with absolute determination not to let it get any further. Mr. Trumpington (Harriet vouched for his name) and myself were certainly acquainted. In a sense you may even say we were friends. If I happened to be murdered or assaulted by a footpad there was not the smallest reason to suppose that Mr. Trumpington would refrain from giving the police every assistance in identifying the criminal. Similarly, if Mr. Trumpington's house caught fire, it was certain that I should be one of the first to offer him the loan of our garden syringe. As things were, what happened was this. Twice or thrice a week we nodded pleasantly to each other over the wall that divided our demesnes, through the interstices of our respective hollyhocks; once, only once, in a mad burst of irresponsible gaiety, Mr. Trumpington had gone so far as to murmur, "Good aft-" to me, and I had responded effusively, "-ernoon."