_Mr. Punch (in background)._ If they were all like her, he would never have said any unkind things at all, Madam. _O si sic omnes!_ _Mrs. Q. (in some alarm)._ A--quite so, I'm sure. What a very singular person! [_Scene closes in._ * * * * * [Illustration: AN APPEAL FROM SCIENCE. "AM I NOT WORTH OF AS MUCH CONSIDERATION AS MUSIC AND GEOLOGY! WHY SHOULD NOT _I_ HAVE A MUSEUM?"] * * * * * HORATIAN MOTTO FOR MR. STANSFELD & CO.--"_Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas._" "The humane gent plunges headlong into impropriety." * * * * * THE BEST "DRESS IMPROVER."--A Pretty Girl. * * * * * A REMINISCENCE OF THE NAVAL REVIEW. I HAD never seen a Naval Review. It was to come off on the Saturday, and this was the Thursday previous. When therefore in answer to a modest inquiry, I received a wire from Mr. RICHARD ROSSHER, Chairman of the Great M. & N. Steamship Company, saying, "Come aboard our new boat, _Regina_, to-morrow, Friday; tickets and instructions by post," I made up my mind on the spot to accept, if I could return on the Saturday night, as business of the utmost importance demanded my presence in London on Sunday morning. What that business was is nobody's business but mine, so I need not explain. Suffice it to say that to miss a certain appointment on Sunday morning, would have been fraught with most disastrous consequences to myself and others. [Illustration] I answered ROSSHER'S telegram, "Yes, with pleasure, if you can land me Saturday night." To which the reply was, "Think it can be managed; try to come." To this I wired, "Instructions and tickets received. Am coming." Within two hours I got a message from a Clerk in the M. & N. Office, City, "ROSSHER on board at Southampton. Too late to wire." What this was meant to convey I did not understand, but my mind was made up, and very soon my bag was packed, and I was ready for the start. At all events, there was the utter novelty to me of being a guest on board one of the largest vessels afloat in the Indian Merchant Service (I believe it is the Indian Merchant Service, or, as OLLENDORFF would put it, "the Service of the Indian Merchant,") with a select party, limited, I supposed, to about a dozen "jolly companions every one," and in being taken in and done for _en prince_, _en prince indien_. "Immensely kind of ROSSHER," I said to myself (and subsequently said it to him) as I alighted at the Waterloo Station, and proceeded at once to the wrong platform. I do not remember ever having been to Waterloo Station without having been to the wrong platform to begin with.