"An advertisement in a morning paper for 20 laborers to do store work resulted in 400 applicants assembling in front of the Petersham P.O., where the advertiser had promised to meet them. To their intense disgust he failed to materialise. The general opinion is that the advertisement was a hoar." _Australian Paper._ A frost anyway. * * * * * [Illustration: =THE USES OF GESTURE.= A sixpenny-bit--plain. One penny--with aplomb.] * * * * * "G.B.R.L." G.B.R.L.'s are an old-established convention in my family. Joan and Pauline ("Porgie" _libentius audit_) are exceptional authorities on the animal world in general; exceptional, at any rate, for their years, which respectively total four-spot-six and two-spot-five. They confound their parents daily with questions relating to the habits of marmots or the language of kiwis. But they never talk about "lions," _tout court_. A lion is, _ex-officio_ and _ipso facto_, a Great-Big-Roarin'-Lion--always has been: in short, a G.B.R.L. It reminds me of a man I know who was made a G.B.E.; but that's another story, and Joan wouldn't see the joke of it anyhow, though I know she would smile politely. But in this matter of lions, from which I am tending to digress, the old G.B.R. convention has just been weighed in the balance and found wanting. It came about in this wise. Joan's and Porgie's Uncle Barney (his nose is _retrousse_, if anything, only he had the misfortune to be born on St. Barnabas' Day) departed the other day for Afric's sunny shores--for Algiers, in fact--to nurse a tedious trench legacy. This, of course, was a matter of great concern to his nieces, in whose eyes he is distinctly _persona grata_, owing to his command of persiflage and taste in confectionery. I went into the nursery on the fateful morning to break the sad news. My daughters were at breakfast and I was just in time to hear Joan's grace, "Thank God for our b'ekfas'--and _do_ make us good." The extremely sanctimonious tone in which this was delivered, combined with the melodramatic scowl which marred the usual serenity of Porgie's countenance, convinced me that the morning had commenced inauspiciously and that it would be well to gild the pill which I had to administer. "Hallo, stout women," I said cheerfully. Joan looked politely bored but made no reply. "Not 'tout wimmin," said Porgie heavily and uncompromisingly. Obviously it was too early in the day for any of that sparkling back-chat for which my daughters are so justly famed. So I got down to hard tacks at once. "Your Uncle Barney," I said, "is going to Algiers to-day."