_Mrs. M._ Not that I am aware of, my dear boy, though it is quite possible. But you are probably confusing him with the Arctic explorer, Dr. KANE. Among the scientific men I must mention Sir WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL, the great Scots agriculturist who first applied intensive culture to the kailyard; General BELLOC, the illustrious topographer, and HAROLD BEGBIE, who discovered and popularized Sir OLIVER LODGE. _Richard._ Ah, Mamma, I know enough about the Georgians to feel sure that you have left out a great many things. You have never told us about the Marquis of NORTHCLIFFE'S discovery of America, his introduction of the potato to that Continent, and his building of the Yellow House in the Yellowstone Park. _George._ And you have not fully satisfied our curiosity about Sir GEORGE ROBEY, Baronet, Lord LAUDER, Sir CHARLES CHAPLIN and other great Leaders of English Society. _Mrs. M._ True, my dear, but you must read their lives in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, for here is the tea, and I must leave off. * * * * * ALLIRAP ASRAS. It would be interesting to know more of this great Persian ruler, but history being reticent our chance has gone, unless it should be the good fortune of some member of Sir STANLEY MAUDE'S expedition, rummaging in the archives of Baghdad, to come upon new facts. Meanwhile I offer the name as a terse and snappy one for a Persian kitten, such as I saw the other day convert several shillings'-worth of my aunt's Berlin wool (as it is still, I believe, called, in spite of _The Daily Mail_) into sheer scrap. Knitting however is not what it was in the early days of the War and the tragedy led to no bloodshed, my aunt, who has evidently an emulative admiration for Sir ISAAC NEWTON, merely shaking her finger. But self-control among women must be on the increase, for in a hotel the other day I overheard a coffee-room conversation in which two cases were instanced of supreme heroism under agonising conditions--one being when a butler (an old and honoured butler too, who had never misconducted himself before) fainted while carrying round the after-dinner coffee and poured most of it over the ample shoulders of a dowager. This lady not only disregarded the pain and the damp, but assisted in bringing the butler to. The Distinguished Service Order has been given for less than that. It was either in this hotel or another that I met the Naval officer among whose duties is the granting or refusing of permits to amateur photographers in districts where "Dora" does not wish for enemy cameras. Among the requirements of the form which has to be filled up is one asking the applicant, in the interests of identification, to specify any peculiar skin marks. One lady, with a conscientiousness not excelled by the actor who blacked himself all over to play _Othello_, stated that she had only an appendicitis scar.