I do not ask for the money as a gift, but as a loan. I prefer the latter to the former, although a long experience has taught me that gift and loan have much the same meaning.
Yours truly, A Very Old Soldier.
Inaudible Proceedings at the Hotel Victoria.—We have had "The Funny Frenchman" over here, at the Albambra, and now we have "The Calculating Frenchman," M. Jacques Inaudi, who, last week, at a séance, exhibited his marvellous powers of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. It is an error to suppose that he was educated for the French Navy, and has been appointed to a ship, which he was to have adorned as a "wonderful Figure-head." By the side of this Figure-head the "Calculating Buoy" would have been quite at sea.
DOWN A PEG.
Mr. Gifted Hopkins (Minor Poet, Essayist, Critic, Golfer, Fin-de-Siècle Idol, &c.). "Oh, Mrs. Smart—a—I've Been thinking, for the last Twenty Minutes, of something to say to you!"
Mrs. Smart (cheerfully). "Please go on Thinking, Mr. Hopkins,—and I'll go on Talking to Professor Brayne in the meantime!"