_Mrs. B._ And the STUART JONESES! (_She kisses her hand gushingly._) By the way, dear, didn't you say that the PLANTAGENET SMITHS were suspected of murdering their Uncle before they inherited his property? _B._ So it is reported, darling. And didn't you tell me, my own, that the parents of Mr. STUART JONES were convicts before they became millionaires? _Mrs. B._ So I have heard, loved one. (_Starting up._) Come, CHARLEY, we must be off at once! The GOLDHARTS! If they catch us, _she_ is sure to ask me to visit some of her sick poor! _B._ And _he_ to beg me to subscribe to an orphanage or a hospital! Here, take your prayer-book, or people won't know that we have come from church! [_Exeunt hurriedly._ * * * * * HOMO SAPIENS. (_A QUESTION FOR THE NEXT ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSEMBLY._) ["When we consider the vast amount of time comprised in the Tertiary period ... the chances that man as at present constituted, should be a survivor from that period seem remote, and against the species _Homo Sapiens_ having existed in Miocene times almost incalculable."--_Address of the President of the Anthropological Section, Dr. John Evans, at the Leeds Meeting of the British Association_.] When then did _Homo Sapiens_ first appear? Upon whose speculations shall we bottom us? Contemporary he with the cave bear, But hardly with the earliest hippopotamus. The happy Eocene beheld him not; That cheerful epoch when a morning ramble Among the mammoths, without gun or shot, Must have been such a truly sportive scramble. The pleasant Pliocene preceded him. Apparently, poor bare, belated _Homo_; His spectre seems to haunt, despondent, dim, Lakes--how unlike Killarney, Wenham, Como!-- Where dens called Dwellings may have left some trace. Before "quarternary times "--whatever _they_ were-- _Homo_ appears not to have shown his face. And then its features far from gracefully gay were. So EVANS, who the mystery of Man's birth Into our Cosmos carefully unravels. He seems to view with sceptical calm mirth, Remains of Man among the river gravels. Well, we'll relinquish Tertiary man, Without immoderate grief, or lasting anguish. The Pliocene, if we can grasp its plan, Would seem an epoch when our race would languish. The skeletons, cut animal bones, and flints, Supposed to prove his presence, let's abandon; But on some subjects we should like some hints; When _did_ he come, and what has Sapient Man done To justify his advent? Take him _now_, Apart from retrospection prehistoric, What is the being of the lifted brow Doing at present? Strange phantasmagoric Pictures of his proceedings flit before The vision of alert imagination; Playing the brute, buffoon, "bounder," or bore, In every climate, and in every nation! _Homo_--here wasting half his hard-earned gains Upon Leviathan Fleets and Mammoth Armies,