An unusual function for men in business circles was that which John Voelkel, janitor of the First National bank, supervised, Saturday evening. He gave a dinner, card party and a smoker to all the officers of the bank. Invitations were issued to every member of the staff, from president to clerk, and those who assembled at the custodian's home made merry for several hours at an event probably without a duplicate in banking history in Iowa City. * * * VARIANT OF THE V. H. W. Sir: Please send me a copy of the famous valve handle wheeze. I have heard so much about it. I hope this reaches you before your limited supply is exhausted. O. G. C. P. S.--One of the fellows in the office just told me the joke, so you need not bother to send me a copy. O. G. C. * * * CRUELLE ET INSOLITE. [Transfer slip, Peninsular Railway Co.] This ticket is good for one continuous passage only in the direction shown by conductor's punch in the face hereof. * * * HIGH, LOW, JACK, AND THE GAME. Sir: While visiting in a New England family I accused them of being "highbrows," and they gave me these modern synonyms for highbrow and lowbrow, taken from a Boston paper: Highbrow: Browning, anthropology, economics, Bacon, the string quartette, the uplift, inherent sin, Gibbon, fourth dimension, Euripides, "eyether," pâté de fois gras, lemon phosphate, Henry Cabot Lodge, Woodrow Wilson. Low-highbrow: Municipal government, Kipling, socialism, Shakespeare, politics, Thackeray, taxation, golf, grand opera, bridge, chicken à la Maryland, "eether," stocks and bonds, gin rickey, Theodore Roosevelt, chewing gum in private. High-lowbrow: Musical comedy, euchre, baseball, moving pictures, small steak medium, whisky, Robert W. Chambers, purple socks, chewing gum with friends. Lowbrow: Laura Jean Libbey, ham sandwich, haven't came, pitch, I and her, melodrama, hair oil, the Duchess, beer, George M. Cohan, red flannels, toothpicks, Bathhouse John, chewing gum in public. E. S. * * * A bachelor complains to us that prohibition has ruined his life. His companions have deserted their haunts--all, all are gone, the old familiar faces--and he can find no one to talk to; and he talks very well, too. Now, we have as much compassion for him as it is possible to have for any bachelor, and yet we do not esteem his case utterly hopeless. As Mr. Lardner has suggested, when he repairs to his hotel at night he can open the clothespress and talk to his other suit of clothes. * * * Tolstoi's "Power of Darkness" reminds P. G. Wodehouse of a definition of Greek tragedy--the sort of drama in which one character comes to another and says, "If _you_ don't kill mother, _I_ will!" * * *