It is something to have a butler who has coughed his irresistible way through two-and-a-half generations. It is a perfectly harmless affliction, but it gets on nerves in the same way as it did when first it huicked and honked and strangled and choked in the seventies of last century. I can see no decrease in its vigour or its variety. It deserves the chance of immortality that I hereby offer it, thus giving it a place beside the cough that _Johnson_ coughed at _Dr. Blimber's_ famous establishment. It will be remembered that, when the _Doctor_ began an excursus on the Romans, _Johnson_, "who happened to be drinking and who caught the Doctor's eye glaring at him through the side of his tumbler, left off so hastily that he was convulsed for some moments and in the sequel ruined Dr. Blimber's point." He struggled gallantly, but had in the end to give way to an overwhelming paroxysm of coughing. It was a good cough, but an isolated one, and was perhaps, after all, not equal to Binns's. * * * * * THE GOOD OLD TIMES. Captain Reginald Jones _and_ Captain James Smith, _demobilised, meet accidentally in the waiting-room of a Government office. Their acquaintanceship had originated in a shell-hole near Plum-Tree Farm in 1916._ _Reggie_. Cheerio, old egg. _Jimmy_. Same to you. Doing anything? _Reggie_. Lord, yes! I've been pushed on to the directorate of the pater's firm. _Jimmy_. Congrats! _Reggie_. Stow it, old man; I'm simply worried to death. The whole cabush is on strike. _Jimmy_. The blighters! What bunch are they? _Reggie_. Stone-breakers. _Jimmy_. Not the stone-breakers, surely? _Reggie_. Yes, the stone-breakers, perish them! _Jimmy_. And are you here about it? _Reggie_. Sure. The junior director gets all the dirty work to do. _Jimmy_. What a coincidence! I'm on the same stunt, old thing. _Reggie_. Board of Trade? _Jimmy_. Rats! Organising secretary of the Stone-breakers' Union. _Reggie (after, gasp of surprise)._ Lucky devil. _Jimmy_. Rot! I'd chuck it if I could afford to. Don't you wish sometimes you were back at Plum-Tree Farm? _Reggie_. Crumbs, Jimmy; but weren't those the glorious days? * * * * * "EX-CROWN PRINCE'S HORSE TO RUN."--_Heading in "The Times_." Like master like horse. * * * * * [Illustration: FOR ENTERPRISING DISPERSAL STATIONS. SPEED UP YOUR OUTPUT BY INSTALLING THE MOVING-STAIRCASE SYSTEM. NO TIME LOST. GOVERNMENT SUITS "ASSEMBLED" BY SKILLED WORKMEN IN RECORD TIME.] * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. (_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks_.)