Formula for accepting a second cigar from a man whose taste in tobacco is poor: "Thank you; the courtesy is not _all_ yours." * * * A number of suicides are attributed to the impending conjunction of the planets and the menace of world-end. You can interest anybody in astronomy if you can establish for him a connection between his personal affairs and the movements of the stars. * * * WHERE 'VANGIE LIES. _Rondeau Sentimental to Evangeline, the Office Goat._ Where 'Vangie lies strown folios Like Vallambrosan leaves repose, The sad, the blithe, the quaint, the queer, The good, the punk are scattered here-- A pile of poof in verse and prose. And none would guess, save him who strows, How much transcendent genius goes Unwept, unknown, into the smear Where 'Vangie lies. With every opening mail it snows Till 'Vangie's covered to her nose. Forgetting that she is so near, I sometimes kick her in the ear. Then sundry piteous ba-a-a's disclose Where 'Vangie lies. * * * "This sale," advertises a candid clothier, "lasts only so long as the goods last, and that won't be very long." * * * THE SECOND POST. (_Letter from an island caretaker._) Dear Sir: Your letter came. Glad you bought a team of horses. Hilda is sick. She has diphtheria and she will die I think. Clara died this eve. She had it, too. We are quarantined. Five of Fisher's family have got it. My wife is sick. She hain't got it. If this thing gets worse we may have to get a doctor. Them trees are budding good. Everything is O. K. * * * Just as we started to light a pipe preparatory to filling this column, we were reminded of Whistler's remark to a student who was smoking: "You should be very careful. You know you might get interested in your work and let your pipe go out." * * * It is odd, and not uninteresting to students of the so-called human race, that a steamfitter or a manufacturer of suspenders who may not know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--who may not, indeed, know anything at all--is nevertheless a bubbly-fountain of political wisdom; whereas a writer for a newspaper is capable of emitting only drivel. This may be due to the greater opportunity for meditation enjoyed by suspender-makers and steamfitters. * * * Janesville's Grand Hotel just blew itself on its Thanksgiving dinner. The menu included "Cheese a la Fromage." * * * "It is with ideas we shall conquer the world," boasts Lenine. If he needs a few more he can get them at the Patent Office in Washington, which is packed with plans and specifications of perpetual motion machines and other contraptions as unworkable as bolshevism. * * * HEARD IN THE BANK.