"For Sale.--Dark red Shorthorn Bulls, from two years downwards, bred to milk for thirty years."--_Farmer's Weekly_. "For Sale by Auction, one Mare Colt."--_Kent and Sussex Courier_. "Then again the cockerel is a summer layer."--_Irish Farming World_. * * * * * "Sir Godfrey Baring, the sitting Liberal member, is not standing again."--_Evening Paper_. If he's not going to sit or stand, he'll have to take it lying down. * * * * * A Venetian boy-scout on the Lido Had sighted a hostile torpedo, So he cried, "Don't suppoge You can blow up the Doge; You must do without him--as we do." * * * * * "WEST OF ENGLAND.--To be Sold, a perfect gentleman's Residence, in faultless condition and all modern improvements, and a pedigree Stock Farm of 150 acres adjoining, with possession."--_Daily Paper_. We hope the pedigree of the perfect gentleman is included as well as that of the stock farm. * * * * * PETHERTON AND THE RAG AUCTION. A letter I received last Friday gave me one of those welcome excuses to get into closer touch with my neighbour, Petherton, than our daily proximity might seem to connote. I wrote to him thus:-- DEAR MR. PETHERTON,--Miss Gore-Langley has written to me to say that she is getting up a Rag Auction on behalf of the Belgian Relief Fund, and not knowing you personally, and having probably heard that I am connected by ties of kinship with you, she asked me to approach you on the subject of any old clothes you may have to spare in such a cause. Of course I'm not suggesting you should allow yourself to be denuded in the cause (like Lady GODIVA), but I daresay you have some odds and ends stowed away that you would contribute; for instance, that delightful old topper that you were wont to go to church in before the War, and that used to cause a titter among the choir--can't you get the moths to let you have it? Neckties, again. Where are the tartans of '71? Surely there may be some bonny stragglers left in your tie-bins. And who fears to talk of '98 and its fancy waistcoats? All rancour about them has passed away, and if you have any ring-straked or spotted survivors, no doubt they would fetch _something_ in a good cause. I hope you will see what you can do for Yours very truly, HENRY J. FORDYCE. Petherton's reply was brief. He wrote:-- SIR--Had Miss Gore-Langley chosen a better channel for the conveyance of her wishes I should have been only too pleased to do what I could to help. As it is, I do not care to have anything to do with the affair. Yours faithfully, FREDERICK PETHERTON. But he was better than his word, as I soon discovered. So I wrote:--