situation by false pretences, we shall have to go before the Registrar on the Monday morning. Our honeymoon will be spent in the delightful and unexploited retreat of the back kitchen. "Yours, in the higher sisterhood, "EUSTASIA PALLAS." CHAPTER X. THE GOOD YOUNG MEN WHO LIVED. "It is, indeed, a happy solution," said Lord Silverdale enviously. "To spend your life in the service of other men, yet to save it for yourself! It reconciles all ideals." "Well, you can very easily try it," said Lillie. "I have just heard from the Princess of Portman Square--she is reorganizing her household in view of her nuptials. Shall I write you a recommendation?" "No, but I will read you an Address to an Egyptian Tipcat," replied his lordship, with the irrelevancy which was growing upon him. "You know the recent excavations have shown that the little Egyptians used to play 'pussy-cat' five thousand years ago." ADDRESS TO AN EGYPTIAN TIP-CAT. And thou has flown about--how strange a story-- Full five and forty centuries ago, Ere Fayoum, fired with military glory, Received from Gurod, with purpureal show, The sea-born captives of the spear and bow; And thou has blacked, perhaps, the very finest eye That sparkled in the Twelfth Egyptian Dynasty. The sight of thee brings visions panoramic Of manlier games, as _Faro_, _Pyramids_. What hands, now tinct with substances balsamic, Have set thee leaping like the sportive kids, What time the passers-by did close their lids? Did the stern Priesthood strive thy cult to smother, Or wast thou worshipped, like thy purring brother? Where is the youth by whom thou wast created And tipped profusely? Doth he frisk in glee In Aahlu, or lives he, transmigrated, The lower life Osiris did decree, Of fowl, or fly, or fish, or fox, or flea? Or, fallen deeper, is he politician, Stumping the land, his country's quack physician? Thou Sphynx in wood, unchanged, serene, immortal, How many States and Temples have decayed And generations passed the mystic portal Whilst thou, still young, hast gone on being played? Say, when thy popularity shall fade? And art thou--here's my last, if not my stiffest-- As good a bouncer as the hieroglyphist? "Why, did the hieroglyphists use to brag?" asked Lillie.