Sometimes I am perfectly certain you don't ring up the number I want until after you have asked me once or twice if they have answered. Isn't that so? "I'll ring them again," you say with a kind of resigned adventurousness; but, knowing as I do that they have been waiting for my call, I am not taken in. But what I want to know is--what were you doing instead of ringing up at first? I suppose that these secrets will never be penetrated by the ordinary subscriber outside the sacred precincts; but I wish you would give me fewer of such problems to ponder during the year that is coming. P.S.--Have you ever considered, with proper alarm, what would happen to a cinema story if a wrong number were provided by the operator, or if any delay whatever occurred? This should make you think. TO A RACING JOURNALIST. I suggest that you should include among your good resolutions for the New Year the decision not to allow your readers to participate in your special information as to which horse will come in first. Tell them all you like about yesterday's sport, but dangle no more "security tips" before their diminishing purses. If they must bet--which of course they must, as betting is now the principal national industry--let them at least have the fun of selecting the "also-ran" themselves. TO MANY AN EDITOR. In contemplating your 1921 programme of regeneration could you not make a vow to dispense with all headlines that ask questions? Probably you never see the paper yourself and therefore have no feeling in the matter, but I can assure you that the habit can become very wearisome. "Will it freeze to-day?" "Can Beckett win?" "Will Hobbs reach his 3,000 runs?" "Are the Lords going to pass the Bill?" Won't you make an effort to do without this formula? It is futile in itself and has the unfortunate effect of raising what surely are undesirable doubts as to whether journalists are any more sensible than their readers. TO ONE EDITOR IN PARTICULAR. No comic hats in 1921, please. TO THE P.M.G. There is, as everyone (except possibly Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN and the cynic who professes to hate letters so much that he wishes that they cost a shilling a-piece to send) will agree, one good resolution which above all others you should concentrate upon for 1921, and that is to get back our penny postage. With so many comparatively unnecessary things still untaxed, it never should have been sacrificed. TO A PORK BUTCHER.