A LITTLE CHANGE.
Hang it all! They have blocked the street and are laying it with asphalte; just in May, as usual. From early morning the quiet of my rooms is disturbed by the noise of the work, when I go out I scramble over heaps of rubbish, past smoking cauldrons of pitch, and when I come home at night my cab drops me nearly a quarter of a mile away. Moreover, one neighbouring house is being painted, and the other is being rebuilt. I fly from falling dust and brickbats, only to run against ladders and paint-pots. It is awful. And now my Aunt Jane is coming up from Bath, and has invited herself to tea at my chambers. Her rheumatism prevents her from walking more than a yard or two, she cannot bear any noise, and the smell of paint makes her ill. She is very rich, and could leave all she has to the poor. Accurately speaking, that class includes me, but in my aunt's opinion it does not. She is very suspicious, and, if I made excuses and invited her to tea anywhere else, she would feel convinced that I was hiding some guilty secret in my dull, quiet, respectable rooms. She is very prim, and the mere suggestion of such a thing would alienate her from me for ever. Why on earth can't she stop in Bath? And I shall have to go with her to May meetings! It is impossible; I must fly. But where? She has a horror and suspicion of all foreign nations, except perhaps the steady, industrious Swiss. Good idea—Switzerland. But what reason can I give for rushing off just now? Someone must send me. I have it. She knows I try to write a little, so I will say my editor requires me to go at once to Geneva to write a series of articles in the Jardin Alpin d'Acclimatation on Alpine botany. Botany, how respectable! Geneva, how sedate! Makes one think at once of Calvin and Geneva bands. These sound rather frivolous, something like German bands, but they are not really so, only, I believe, a sort of clerical cravat. Then I will start off to Paris, the direct way to Geneva.
Perhaps I shall never reach Geneva. Paris will do well enough. No streets there taken up in the Spring. No painting on the clean stone houses. No rebuilding on the Boulevards. No aunt of mine anywhere near. I shall escape all my troubles. I shall be able to smoke my cigarette lazily in the pleasant courtyard of the Grand Hôtel, and try to imagine that I see some of the people in Trilby—Little Billee, or Taffy, or the Laird—amongst the animated, cosmopolitan crowd. And the stately giant in the gilt chain will solemnly arrange the newspapers in all languages, and will supply me with note-paper. I must be careful not to write to my aunt a long description of the Jardin Alpin d'Acclimatation de Geneve on paper stamped "Grand Hôtel, Paris." And the attentive Joseph, with those long grey whiskers, sacred to the elderly French waiter and the elderly French lawyer, will exclaim, "V'là, M'sieu!" in all those varied tones which make the two syllables mean "Yessir!" "Coming, Sir!" "Here is your coffee, Sir!" "In a minute, Sir!" and so many things besides. And I shall be able to watch, assembled from all parts of the world, some younger and prettier faces than my Aunt Jane's. That settles it. A regretful letter to my aunt. And to-morrow en route!
Change of Spelling?—Our dramatic friend known to the public through Mr. Punch as Enry Hauthor Jones appears to have recently altered the spelling of his name. He has left the Jones and the Henry alone, but in the Times of Friday he appears as "Henry Arther Jones," "U" out of it; and what was "E" doing there?
Presentation to the Rev. Guinness Rogers.—Last week this worthy minister was presented by his Congregationalists with an address and a cheque for a thousand guineas, Mr. Gladstone, ex-minister, being among the subscribers. In future the bénéficiaire will be remembered as the "Reverend Thousand Guinness Rogers."
Music Note (after hearing Mr. J. M. Coward's performance on the Orchestral Harmonium).—It would be high praise to say of any organist that "he attacks his instrument in a Cowardly manner."
"Very Appropriate."—Last Wednesday the Right Hon. A. W. Peel became a "Skinner."