What? What's that? No, I don't really want to buy it, thank you. I just wanted to see if it was a good sleeping-car. As a matter of fact I think it is. But I don't like the colour. And what I really want is a cabriolet. Good afternoon. Thank you....
A pleasant gentleman, that. I wish I could have bought the Saloon. She would have liked me. So would he, I expect.
Well, we had better go home. I shan't buy any more cars to-day. And we won't go up to the gallery; there is nothing but oleo-plugs and graphite-grease up there. That sort of thing spoils the romance.
Ah, here is dear Jane again! What a pity it was—— Hallo, they have come back—the two nice herrings. They are bargaining—they are beating him down. No, he is beating them up. Go on—go on. Yes, you can run to that—of course you can. Sell those oil shares. Look at her—look at her! You can't leave her here for one of the bloaters. He wavers; he consults. "Such a lovely colour." Ah, that's done it! He has decided. He has bought. She has bought. They have bought. Hurrah!
A. P. H.
THE PREMIER'S METAPHORS.
Some time ago the Premier beheld the sunrise upon the mountains, and now he has plunged his thermometer into the lava to discover that the stream is cooling—indicating comfort, let us hope, to any who may be buried beneath it. Only by an oversight, we understand, did he omit to mention in his speech at the Guildhall that the chamois is once more browsing happily among the blooming edelweiss.
But in continuing his lofty metaphors Mr. Lloyd George will find himself confronted by no small difficulty when dealing with the glacier. What can he say that the glacier is doing? It must do something. A glacier is of no rhetorical value if it merely stays where it is. One may take in hand the ice-axe of resolution and the alpenstock of enterprise and pull over one's boots the socks of Coalition, but the glacier remains practically unchanged by these preparations. It would be of little use to declare that its uneven surface is being levelled by the steam-roller of progress and its crevasses filled in by the cement of human kindness, because the Opposition Press would soon get scientists, engineers and statisticians to establish the absurdity of such a claim. And to announce that the glacier is getting warmer would create no end of a panic among the homesteads in the valley. Unless he is very, very careful Mr. Lloyd George may make a grave slip in negotiating the glacier.
Then the "awful avalanche" has not yet been dealt with. A few helpful words on the direction this is likely to take and the safest rock to make for when it begins to move might be welcomed by the Premier's followers. He may argue that it is folly to meet trouble half-way, but on the other hand, if he does not speak on this subject soon, the opportunity may disappear. Let him avoid the glacier if he chooses; he cannot (so we are informed) escape the avalanche.